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*Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been cleared of influencing the award of a U.N. contract in Iraq to a firm that employed his son but he has been faulted for an "inadequate" probe of the deal, reports Reuters.
The second report of the independent inquiry into the U.N. oil-for-food program, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, focused almost exclusively on Annan and his son, Kojo, who worked for the Swiss firm Cotecna.
Cotecna received a $10-million-a-year U.N. contract in late 1998 to certify goods coming into Iraq under the scandal-tainted $67 billion program, which began in late 1996 and ended in 2003. The aid program was administered by the U.N. secretariat and supervised by the 15-nation Security Council.
"Hell no!" Annan told a news conference on Tuesday when asked if he would resign, as some U.S. lawmakers had demanded. He said the inquiry had "cleared me of any wrongdoing" but acknowledged his son had been less than truthful with him and the inquiry.
"I love my son and I have always expected the highest standards of integrity from him. I am deeply saddened by the evidence to the contrary," Annan said.
But Volcker, at a separate news conference, repeatedly criticized as "inadequate" an investigation of the Cotecna contract award that the secretary-general had initiated.
"We think he should have authorized an independent and thorough investigation," Volcker said. "That was not done."
Volcker’s report said the younger Annan "intentionally deceived the secretary-general" about his continuing financial relationship with Cotecna. "Significant questions remain about Kojo and his actions during the fall of 1998 as well as the integrity of his business and financial dealings with respect to the oil-for-food program. The committee's investigation of these matters is continuing."
Kojo Annan, now 31, was a trainee with Cotecna from late 1995 until the end of 1998, about the time the firm received the U.N. contract for inspecting goods in Iraq. Kojo did not immediately reveal that he continued to earn $2,500 a month from 1999 until February 2004 in return for not joining Cotecna competitors in West Africa.
He lives in Lagos and is the son of the secretary-general and his first wife, Titi Alakija, a Nigerian. The parents divorced and Kofi Annan in 1984 married the former Nane Lagergren, a Swedish lawyer and artist.