Annan in oil for food link

INVESTIGATORS of the UN oil-for-food programme said yesterday they are “urgently reviewing” new information that suggests UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more than he revealed about a contract that was awarded to the company that employed his son.

The December 1998 memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna Inspections SA, mentions brief discussions with Annan "and his entourage" at a summit in Paris in 1998 about Cotecna's bid for a €8.3 million-a-year contract under oil-for-food.

If accurate, the memo could contradict a major finding of the Independent Inquiry Committee that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son, Kojo, to win the contract. Cotecna learned it won the contract on December 11, 1998, days after the meeting.