The Hindu Business Line : Oil for greasing

THIS newspaper can take legitimate pride that it was the first to expose, in an article "Oil as weapon of mass corruption" by the author published on October 15, 2004, the shady deals masquerading as UN Oil-for-Food programme.

It named names and drew attention to seeming collusion among the Iraqi regime, UN officials, and contractors in more than 40 countries, including the permanent members of the Security Council, in subverting the Programme into the biggest and the most extensive international racket of modern times.

The eruption of the scandal forced the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, to appoint the former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Mr Paul Volcker, to undertake an investigation. His report to a large extent confirms accounts of complicity of top UN officials administering the Programme and many of the major contractors selected violating UN's own guidelines.

An ugly surprise contained in the report is the involvement of the UN Secretary-General's son, Kojo, who was employed by the Swiss company, Cotecna, which was chosen in late 1998 to inspect humanitarian goods going to Iraq.

The report found no evidence that the senior Annan had influenced the awarding of the contract, but was highly critical about his failure to keep track of his son's activities in view of the conflict of interest his role entailed. It also revealed that Mr Kofi Annan's former chief of staff, Iqbal Riza, had ordered important documents shredded.

Some mud also sticks to the members of the Security Council during the relevant period, as they doubled as the Sanctions Committee for Iraq, and were supposed to exercise oversight on the transactions between Iraq and the various buyers of oil and suppliers of relief items, based on reports furnished by the UN officials administering the Programme.

Altogether an appalling case of ineptitude and negligence in high places in an organisation with a bloated bureaucracy enjoying excessive tax-free emoluments and diplomatic immunity from action against misdemeanours. Mr Kofi Annan certainly bears moral responsibility for the mismanagement that led to siphoning off of $60 billion and more (against a UN budget of $1.5 billion).

Does he not owe it to himself and his office to step down by way of setting an example?

B. S. Raghavan

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