Annan's Contacts With Firm Probed; Oil-for-Food Panel Is Examining Son's Links With Company
-- A U.N.-appointed panel investigating influence peddling in the oil-for-food program in Iraq is examining three contacts between Secretary General Kofi Annan and executives of a Swiss company that made payments to Annan's son while it conducted millions of dollars' worth of business with the world body, a senior U.N. official said.</br></br>The U.N. chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, made the disclosure less than a week before former Federal Reserve chairman Paul A. Volcker is due to issue a report on whether Kojo Annan improperly used his family connections to obtain a U.N. contract for his former employer, Cotecna Inspection SA, in December 1998.</br></br>Malloch Brown described Annan's meetings as "innocent encounters" that played no role in securing contracts for the Geneva-based firm and said the secretary general told investigators about them. He said that Annan is confident he "will be exonerated of any wrongdoing" but that Volcker will determine whether the actions of his son were "appropriate or not."</br></br>The $64 billion U.N. oil-for-food program was created in December 1996 to provide Iraq with an exemption from sanctions, which had been imposed after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, to sell oil to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian goods. The former Iraqi government collected more than $2 billion in bribes and kickbacks from companies trading with Iraq under the program.</br></br>Annan appointed Volcker in April to investigate allegations of misconduct by U.N. personnel. Last month, Volcker accused Benon Sevan, the former director of the oil-for-food program, of asking the Iraqi government to steer valuable oil contracts to an Egyptian businessman. Sevan insists he has done nothing wrong.