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Memo suggests oil-for-food link to Annan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-15 14:24
The committee probing the U.N. oil-for-food program announced Tuesday it will
again investigate Secretary-General Kofi Annan after two e-mails suggested he
may have known more than he claimed about a multimillion-dollar U.N. contract
awarded to the company that employed his son.
One e-mail described an encounter between Annan and officials from Cotecna
Inspection S.A. in late 1998 during which the Swiss company's bid for the
contract was raised. The second from the same Cotecna executive expressed his
confidence that the company would get the bid because of "effective but quiet
lobbying" in New York diplomatic circles.
If accurate, the new details would cast doubt on a major finding the
U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee made in March — that there wasn't
enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed
his son Kojo, to win the Iraq oil-for-food contract. The Associated Press
obtained the e-mails Tuesday.
French President Jacques Chirac, right,
listens to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan during a conference
devoted to the so-called Global Compact, a voluntary charter of rules of
ethics for businesses, Tuesday June 14, 2005 in Paris.
[AP] | Through his spokesman, Annan said he didn't remember the late 1998 meeting.
He repeatedly has insisted that he didn't know Cotecna was pursuing a contract
with the oil-for-food program.
The $64 billion oil-for-food program was aimed at helping ordinary Iraqis
suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of
Kuwait, but it has become the target of several corruption investigations since
the Iraqi leader was ousted.
Annan appointed the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal
Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, in an effort to settle the issue for good.
A key issue has been whether Annan was guilty of a conflict of interest
because the United Nations awarded the $10 million-a-year contract to Cotecna
while Kojo Annan was a consultant for the company.
In an interim report in March, Volcker's committee accused Cotecna and Kojo
Annan of trying to conceal their relationship after the firm won the contract.
It said Kofi Annan didn't properly investigate possible conflicts of interest
but cleared him of trying to influence the contract or violating U.N. rules.
In a statement, the committee said it was "urgently reviewing" the two
e-mails, which it received from Cotecna on Monday night.
"Does this raise a question? Sure," said Reid Morden, executive director of
the probe.
The previously unknown e-mails will be a new distraction for the U.N.
secretary-general, who had claimed he was exonerated by the interim report and
had hoped that the committee was finished investigating his personal
involvement.
Morden said investigators had planned to interview Annan soon as part of its
investigation into management of oil-for-food. "This certainly adds another
topic," he said of the Cotecna e-mails.
In a statement released earlier Tuesday, Cotecna again denied wrongdoing in
getting the contract to certify deals for supplies Iraq imported under
oil-for-food.
The first Dec. 4, 1998, e-mail from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of
Cotecna and a friend of both Kofi and Kojo Annan's, mentions brief discussions
with the secretary-general "and his entourage" at a summit in Paris in 1998.
He wrote that Cotecna's bid was discussed and Cotecna was told it "could
count on their support."
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said U.N. officials reviewed the records of
Annan's Paris trip and found no record of any exchange with Michael Wilson. He
said Annan also didn't recall talking to Wilson then.
Wilson's memo also refers to a "KA" who made courtesy calls to various
African leaders at the Paris summit. That could be Kojo Annan, then a Cotecna
consultant.
Eckhard said it would be reasonable to assume that Kofi and Kojo Annan would
have met in Paris if Kojo Annan was there, though he knew of no record of it.
The contents of that e-mail were first reported by The New York Times.
The second e-mail from Wilson, sent minutes after the first, discussed a
meeting that took place three days earlier with U.N. procurement officials to
talk about the contract bid.
Under a section labeled "conclusion," it said: "With the active backing of
the Swiss mission in New York and effective but quiet lobbying within the
diplomatic circles in New York, we can expect a positive outcome to our
efforts."
Most telling about that e-mail, however, was a brief mention in which Wilson
said Annan's approval of the bid was required. U.N. rules in fact did not
require Annan to approve those decisions, something officials here have
repeatedly stressed.
In that light, Wilson's belief that Annan's approval was necessary sheds
light on his thinking at the time toward the secretary-general. Wilson could not
be reached for comment Tuesday.
The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996-2003, has become a lightning
rod for critics of the United Nations. Annan and the world body also have faced
recent criticism over sexual abuse by U.N. peacekeepers in Congo and
mismanagement of the world body.
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