The Bush administration, which earlier backed Secretary-General Kofi Annan in the UN oil-for-food scandal, on Tuesday demanded he be held accountable for mismanagement in the programme. "What we have heard, so far, is that there were serious problems inside the UN on the management of this. We're not sure if there were criminal problems, but there were certainly management problems," outgoing US Secretary of State Colin Powell told Fox News. "And the secretary-general will have to be accountable for those management problems," he added in the television interview taped for broadcast on Wednesday. UN internal auditors have found management lapses in the now-defunct, $64 billion programme although they found no corruption among individual United Nations officials. The spotlight on Annan has intensified this week after Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, who is conducting an independent probe of the programme, released more than 50 internal UN reports. While the Bush administration was slower than other major governments to back Annan as the scandal mushroomed last year, it has resisted echoing some calls in Washington for Annan to resign.