Annan Receives Iraq Oil-For-Food Probe Report

Annan Receives New Report On Misconduct Probe Of Iraq Oil-For-Food Programme

The independent committee probing alleged misconduct and mismanagement in the United Nations Oil-for-Food programme for Iraq today presented to Secretary-General Kofi Annan a second interim report dealing with the employment of his son by a Swiss company awarded a contract in the multibillion dollar relief effort.

Former United States Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, head of Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), brought the document, which will be made public at noon, to Mr. Annan in the Secretary-General’s 38th floor office at UN Headquarters in New York.

Mr. Annan is to hold a news conference on the report’s findings this afternoon.

Last week, the Secretary-General’s Chief of Staff, Mark Malloch Brown, said Mr. Annan expected to be fully exonerated by the report concerning past employment of his son, Kojo, with the Swiss company Cotecna, which was awarded a contract to monitor the now defunct Oil-for-Food programme that allowed then sanctions-bound Iraq to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian supplies.

Mr. Malloch Brown told a news briefing that Mr. Annan had consistently maintained that he himself was not guilty of any wrongdoing, that Kojo’s work for Cotecna had nothing to do with its contract, and that Kojo had confirmed that he misled his father about the extent of his relationship with the company.

© Scoop Media