PM - Calls for Annan Resignation as Oil for Food Scandal Continues

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PM - Calls for Annan resignation as oil for food scandal continues

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http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1254955.htm]

PM - Tuesday, 30 November, 2004 18:25:58
Reporter: Alison Caldwell

MARK COLVIN: The United Nations oil for food scandal, already known to involve up to $20-billion, is starting to lap at the very top of the UN.

The Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has been forced to distance himself from the business dealings of his son Kojo. The reason - revelations that Kojo was paid by a company involved in the oil for food program as recently as February this year.

Kofi Annan has been forced to express his disappointment in his son's lack of disclosure on the matter, which has dogged the UN chief for the past three months.

The pressure on Kofi Annan has intensified in recent days with high profile columnists in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal now calling for him to resign.

It comes just two days ahead of the release of a major report recommending widespread reform of the UN, a report requested by the Secretary General himself.

Alison Caldwell reports.

ALISON CALDWELL: The controversy surrounding the UN's oil for food program is now threatening to destroy the credibility of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The latest chapter involves his son Kojo Annan and payments he received from a firm that had a contract under the oil for food program in Iraq.

Late last week, a spokesman for Kofi Annan was forced to admit that the monthly payments continued up until February this year, six years later than previously reported.

Today UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard fronted the media in New York to express the Secretary General's disappointment.

FRED ECKHARD: As to his son Kojo, and the specific allegations that he continued to receive payment from Cotecna until February of this year, the Secretary General said he had been under the impression that those payments had stopped in 1998. When he recently found out that had in fact continued until this year, the Secretary General said he was surprised and disappointed.

ALISON CALDWELL: Nigeria based Kojo Annan once worked for the Swiss company Cotecna Inspections. The UN had claimed that Kojo severed ties with the company in February 1999, but the monthly payments of more than $3,000 continued until February this year.

Fred Eckhard again.

FRED ECKHARD: He added that his son is a grown man, and that the Secretary General doesn't get involved in his son's business, and that his son doesn't get involved in the UN's business.

ALISON CALDWELL: The United Nations hired Cotecna to check civilian supplies reaching Iraq under the UN's oil for food program, from 1998 until 2003.

There's no evidence that Kojo Annan worked on Cotecna's Iraqi program, and according to Fred Eckhard, the Secretary General had no role in the distribution of UN contracts.

The oil for food scandal is the subject of six separate US congressional inquiries. Kofi Annan commissioned the former chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, to conduct his own independent inquiry.

Conservative commentator Frank Gaffney was a senior Defence Department official in the Reagan administration. Now with the Centre for Security Policy in Washington, he believes the story about Kofi Annan's son is just the tip of the iceberg.

FRANK GAFFNEY: It will be simply one more instance in which the integrity of the Secretary General is called into question. And my guess is that the institution will decide that if it's a question of his survival or its reputation, that it will be time for Kofi Annan to go.

ALISON CALDWELL: This has been the subject of an inquiry by Paul Volker's there, and Kofi Annan has also said that reporters should be patient and wait for the outcome of that inquiry. That's not going to stop the discussion is it?

FRANK GAFFNEY: I don't think so. There are a number of congressional investigations now in the United States that are going forward apace. It's a question of how long will it take for all of the relevant information to come out, not a question of whether it will come out. And the longer it takes, I think the more the damage will be to the reputation and the authority of the United Nations.

MARK COLVIN: The neo-conservative Frank Gaffney from the Centre for Security Policy in Washington, with Alison Caldwell.