Volcker Delivers Final Iraqi Oil-For-Food Report

Volcker Delivers Final Iraqi Oil-For-Food Report To Annan

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today received the final report of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) into the Iraqi Oil-for-Food Programme, dealing with the role of companies in the United Nation run $64 billion initiative which allowed the sanctions-bound regime of Saddam Hussein to sell oil to buy essential supplies.

IIC Chairman Paul Volcker, a former United States Federal Reserve Chairman, handed the report over to Mr. Annan in the Secretary-General’s 38th floor office at UN Headquarters in New York.

Previous reports on the now defunct Programme criticized the UN Secretariat for the way it was run, saying the IIC had found evidence of both mis- or maladministration and corruption within the UN and by contractors.

They found that there was no evidence of any affirmative or improper influence by Mr. Annan in the bidding or selection process that selected a company for which his son, Kojo, had worked.

Mr. Annan has said he has already initiated reforms following the earlier reports, which noted the significant role played by the Programme in assuring that ordinary Iraqi received food and medicine during the sanctions from 1996 until 2003.

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