UN chief’s son faces fresh oil contract claims

THE son of the UN Secretary-General was yesterday reported to have received at least €230,000 from a Swiss company that was awarded a contract from the UN’s oil-for-food programme in Iraq — almost double the amount previously disclosed.

The Financial Times and Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 said the payments to Kojo Annan "were arranged in ways that obscured where the money came from or whom it went to".

Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is conducting an independent investigation of alleged corruption in the oil-for-food programme, is due to release an interim report on March 29 detailing his findings about whether or not Kofi and Kojo Annan committed any offences.

The secretary-general, his son, and the company, Cotecna, all deny any wrongdoing.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard had no immediate comment on the reports Kojo Annan worked for Cotecna in West Africa from 1995 to December 1997 and then as a consultant until the end of 1998, according to the company.

In November, Mr Eckhard said Kojo Annan's lawyer had informed the probe the younger Annan received about €2,000 a month around €25,000 a year from Cotecna for more than five years through February 2004.

The oil-for-food programme allowed the former Iraqi government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods.

In a bid to curry favour and end sanctions, Saddam Hussein's regime allegedly gave former government officials, activists, journalists and UN officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.