World

No Slap In Oil-For-Food File Shred

April 28, 2005 / 3:57 PM EDT / AP

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Thursday there were no grounds to take disciplinary action against his former chief-of-staff who shredded documents related to the oil-for-food scandal.

The Independent Inquiry Committee led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has criticized Iqbal Riza for giving approval to shred three years of files on April 22, 2004 — the day after the U.N. Security Council authorized the investigation into the oil-for-food program.

The files — which Riza said were duplicates — contained documents related to the oil-for-food program that were unavailable in the U.N. records file, a report by the committee said in March.

Annan said Volcker found Riza had acted imprudently and did not follow his own directive but he found no violations of staff rules.

"The Secretary-General acknowledges that Mr. Riza's actions were careless but he does not believe that there can be construed as deliberate attempts to impede the work of the investigation," Stefane Dujarric, a spokesman for Annan said.

In a letter to Riza dated April 19 and released Thursday, Annan wrote: "I accept your apology and assure you that I still have great faith in your professionalism and well known integrity."

Riza retired as Annan's chief-of-staff at the end of last year. He was replaced by Mark Malloch Brown.

Dujarric told reporters Thursday that the United Nations would not pay the legal fees of Benon Sevan, the former oil-for-food chief who was accused of serious wrongdoing in his handling of the $64 billion program.

U.N. officials revealed in March that Annan had agreed to pay Sevan's legal fees but the decision was reversed after the Independent Inquiry Committee accused Sevan of a "grave conflict of interest."

It said his conduct in soliciting oil deals from Iraq "seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations."

"We did receive a letter from Mr. Sevan's lawyer earlier this month asking us to reconsider our position about the payment of his legal fees. The Secretary-General's position on that is unchanged and his legal fees will not be paid for by the United Nations," Dujarric said.

The letter contained language to the effect that Sevan wanted to keep the issue confidential, but Dujarric said Thursday: "I would not characterize the letter as a threat."

He added: "We encourage anyone who has any information about any wrong-doing to speak openly and quickly to Mr Volcker so he can get to the bottom of what went on in the oil-for-food program."

The oil-for-food program was the largest U.N. humanitarian aid operation, running from 1996-2003. It was designed to let Saddam Hussein's government sell limited — and eventually unlimited — amounts of oil in exchange for humanitarian goods as an exemption from U.N. sanctions imposed in 1991 following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

In other oil-for-food news:

The French bank BNP-Paribas SA acknowledged Thursday that payments it approved under the U.N. oil-for-food program may have violated program guidelines. While recognizing some "avoidable errors," the bank told a congressional panel it had followed standard financial practices and that the transactions were not related to the corruption in the program. The U.S. branch of BNP handled most of the money in oil-for-food transactions.

Members of Congress have been examining allegations of mismanagement and corruption at the United Nations and in U.N. programs as they press for an overhaul of the organization. Most of the attention has focused on the $64 billion oil-for-food program, which allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell oil and use proceeds to buy food and other humanitarian goods while Iraq was under sanctions. A series of investigations have found that Saddam manipulated the program, receiving kickbacks from contractors and illegally importing prohibited items.

By Leyla Linton