U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was unaware his son received $30,000 a year for over five years from a Swiss-based company under investigation in connection with suspected corruption in the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq.
The disclosure of the payments was the latest embarrassment for Annan and the United Nations related to the program to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Annan told reporters Monday that he had been working on the understanding that payments to his son, Kojo Annan, from Cotecna Inspection S.A. stopped in 1998 "and I had not expected that the relationship continued."
However, on Friday, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Kojo Annan's lawyer had informed the independent panel appointed by the secretary-general to investigate allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food program that the younger Annan continued to receive monthly payments through February 2004.
The program allowed Iraq to sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the proceeds went primarily for humanitarian goods and reparations for victims of the 1991 Gulf War.
Annan's son worked for Cotecna in West Africa from 1995 to December 1997 and then as a consultant until the end of 1998.
"Kojo Annan's sole responsibilities were in Africa," said Cotecna spokeswoman Ginny Wolfe. "He had nothing to do with any U.N. discussions and work."
Cotecna was hired by the United Nations on December 31, 1998 to certify that food, medicine and other goods entering Iraq corresponded to a list of goods approved for import.
The United Nations previously said Kojo Annan stopped receiving monthly payments from Cotecna at the end of 1999. However, Eckhard said Friday he continued to be paid because he had an open-ended no-compete contract.
Under that contract, Kojo Annan was paid $2,500 a month — $30,000 a year — in return for which he agreed not to work for a competitor, Wolfe said.
The secretary-general restated that in his U.N. job he has "no involvement with granting of contracts, either on this Cotecna one or others." But he said he understood "the perception problem for the U.N., or the perception of conflict of interests and wrongdoing."
