UN/USA/IRAQ: UN SECREATARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN PLEDGES TO GET TO THE TRUTH IN IRAQI OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL

Record ID: 677812

  • Title: UN/USA/IRAQ: UN SECREATARY GENERAL KOFI ANNAN PLEDGES TO GET TO THE TRUTH IN IRAQI OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL
  • Date: 3rd February 2005
  • Summary: (EU) NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA (FEBRUARY 3, 2005) (REUTERS) VOLCKER REPORTS BEING STACKED ON TABLE CLOSE UP OF REPORT REFERRING TO FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF OIL FOR FOOD PROGRAMME, BENON SEVAN
  • Embargoed: 18th February 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: UNITED NATIONS / NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, USA / VARIOUS UNIDENTIFIED IRAQ
  • City:
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Crime,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAQVHY5IEAD4J15564677NWBEQ
  • Story Text: UN secretary general Koffi Annan pledges to get to
    truth in oil-for-food scandal.


    United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan pledged
    on Friday (February 4) to get to the bottom of any
    wrongdoing by the UN in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal.

    "We are as determined as everyone to get to the bottom
    of this. We do not want this shadow to hang over the U.N.,"
    Annan told reporters as he arrived at the organisation's
    headquarters in New York.

    "So we want to get to the bottom of it, get to the truth
    and take appropriate measures to deal with the gaps," he
    said.

    An independent inquiry named by Annan to look into the
    $69 billion programme, which was shut down in 2003 a few
    months after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, issued an
    interim report on Thursday that found lax U.N. controls, a
    shortage of audit staff and political favoritism when the
    program was put in place in 1996.

    It found no pilfering of money from the U.N.

    administration of the programme.

    But the head of the commission, Paul Volcker, said the
    program's director, Benon Sevan, engaged in a "grave
    conflict of interest" by soliciting oil allocations for a
    small trading firm run by relatives of Boutros
    Boutros-Ghali, the U.N. Secretary-General from 1991 to
    1996. Volcker is investigating whether Sevan received a
    kickback for his efforts, as Iraqis have alleged.

    Annan acknowledged the report's interim findings do no
    good to the U.N.'s reputation.

    "I think for an organisation like the UN any hint of
    corruption and misbehaviour and that sort of disrespect for
    rules is harmful and is dangerous and we can not dismiss it
    and we do take it seriously," he said.

    Annan intends to take disciplinary action against Sevan
    and Joseph Stephanides, who now heads Security Council
    affairs and was accused in Volcker's report of interfering
    in contracts without competitive bidding in 1996. He said
    he was consulting lawyers on how to do this.

    He said diplomatic immunity would be lifted if there
    were charges of criminal acts, and he said the United
    Nations would right financial controls and accounting
    procedures and more reforms would follow.

    For Annan, who worked closely with Sevan for many years,
    the revelations were a personal blow.

    He said, "I think I am not the only one who was shocked
    by what we read in the report, I mean he's been here
    working with many of us for quite a time and we had not
    expected anything of this sort."
    Iraq's interim government is now demanding that anyone
    who stole from the oil-for-food programme stand trial and
    that money be repaid to the Iraqi people.

    In a news conference, Iraq's ambassador to the U.N.,
    Samir Samaidaie expressed his anger that even U.N.

    dignitaries were not above corruption.

    He had harsh words for Annan's predecessor,
    Boutros-Ghali, "The Secretariat bent over backwards to
    please the Saddam era regime, at that time it was
    Boutros-Ghali who was the Secretary-General and the report
    asserts that he tried to please the Saddam government by
    accommodating it's requests," he said.

    The oil-for-food programme, which began in December 1996
    and ended in November 2003, allowed Saddam's government to
    sell oil to buy humanitarian goods. It was intended to ease
    the life of ordinary Iraqis under 1990 U.N. sanctions.

    Samaidaie said, "We have a Security Council passing
    resolutions aimed at a certain political purpose and we
    have a Secretariat effectively, through whatever reason,
    subverting that purpose - this is a flaw that must not be
    repeated."
    Iraq is also calling for the investigation to be widened
    to include field managers of the Iraq Programme, claiming
    the corruption and mismanagement seeped down to all levels.

    Volcker's full report is due out this summer.
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