Annan denies knowledge of son's five-year UN-Iraq deal
UNITED Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, has denied knowledge of payments of $30,000 yearly for five years to his son, Kojo, by a firm under probe over a UN contract in Iraq.
The firm, Cotecna Inspection S. A., which is based in Switzerland, is being investigated in connection with alleged fraud in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The programme allowed Iraq to sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the proceeds went primarily for humanitarian goods and reparation for victims of the 1991 Gulf-War.
For Annan and the UN, the disclosure of the payments was the latest embarrassment in the programme to help Iraqis cope with UN sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Annan told reporters on Monday that he had been working on the understanding that payments to his son, Kojo, from Cotecna stopped in 1998 "and I had not expected that the relationship continued."
But last Friday, UN's spokesman, Fred Eckhard, said Kojo's lawyer had informed the independent panel appointed by the secretary-general to investigate allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food programme that the younger Annan continued to receive monthly payments through February 2004.
Kojo worked for Cotecna in West Africa from 1995 to December 1997 and then as a consultant until the end of 1998.
Cotecna spokesman, Ginny Wolfe, said: "Kojo Annan's sole responsibilities were in Africa. He had nothing to do with any UN discussions and work."
The UN hired Cotecna on December 31, 1998, to certify that food, medicine and other goods entering Iraq corresponded to a list of goods approved for import.
The UN previously said Kojo Annan stopped receiving monthly payments from Cotecna at the end of 1999. But Eckhard said that the UN scribe's son continued to be paid because he had an open-ended, no-compete contract.
Under that contract, Kojo was paid $2,500 a month - $30,000 a year - in return for which he agreed not to work for a competitor, Wolfe said.
The secretary-general reiterated that in his UN job, he had "no involvement with granting of contracts, either on this Cotecna one or others." But Annan said he understood "the perception problem for the UN or the perception of conflict of interests and wrongdoing."
Five U.S. congressional panels have been pressing the independent inquiry headed by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to hand over internal UN documents for their own oil-for-food probes. But Volcker told the Senate that his panel would not hand over documents until its investigative reports were issued starting in January.
Earlier this month, congressional investigators estimated that Saddam's government raised more than $21.3 billion in illegal revenue under the oil-for-food programme and by subverting UN sanctions for over a decade.
Eckhard said it was up to Volcker to decide whether Kojo's contract involved wrongdoing. "We feel there is not. We have looked into it and we can find no evidence," he said.
Wolfe noted that the oil-for-food programme awarded Cotecna an inspection contract in 1992 - before Kojo joined the company - but it was withdrawn because Saddam did not want full inspections. In 1996, when Kojo was working for the company, Cotecna lost an oil-for-food contract to Lloyd's Register, she said.
With these two contracts in mind, Wolfe said, "it defies logic to think there was anything going on in the process" of awarding the contract to Cotecna in December 1998.
Annan has said his son joined Cotecna at the age of 22 as a trainee in Geneva, before he became secretary-general.
"He is an independent business man. He is a grown man, and I don't get involved with his activities and he doesn't get involved in mine," the UN chief said.
Asked whether he was disappointed and angry with his son for taking the money and not disclosing it, Annan replied: "Naturally I was very disappointed and surprised, yes."
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth discussed the oil-for-food investigations with Annan on Monday and was asked afterward whether the United States still had confidence in the secretary-general.
"I don't think the U.S. government rushes to judgment until all the facts are in," he said.
