From an article by Claudia Rosett in National Review On Line on March 10, 2004: In the growing scandal over the United Nations Oil-for-Food program ... U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and his staff have excused themselves from any responsibility for the massive corruption .... That's fascinating, not least given the ties of Annan's own son, Kojo Annan, to the Switzerland-based firm, Cotecna, which from 1999 onward worked on contract for the U.N. monitoring the shipments of Oil-for-food supplies into Iraq. .... Cotecna was hired by the U.N. on December 31, 1998. Shortly afterward, press reports surfaced that Kojo was a partner in a private consulting firm doing work for Cotecna, and that just 13 months previously he had occupied a senior slot on Cotecna's own staff. Asked about this in 1999 by the London Telegraph, a U.N. spokesman, John Mills, replied that the U.N. had not been aware of the connection, and that "The tender by Cotecna was the lowest by a significant margin." But the information that Cotecna — while employing Kofi's son in any capacity — put in the lowest bid by far for the job of authenticating Saddam's Oil-for-Food imports, is not necessarily reassuring. .... this is a subject on which neither the U.N. nor Cotecna has been willing to offer illumination. Asked for details, both have stonewalled. .... A query to the U.N. Oil-for-Food elicits from a spokesman only the information that the five-year-old response by the late Mills "stands, as provided by the U.N." A recent query to Cotecna, asking for at least some detail on ties to Kojo Annan, elicits nothing beyond the reply that: "There is nothing else to add."