UNITED NATIONS - Four years after the UN Security Council ordered the shutdown of the troubled oil-for-food program for Iraq, some Iraqi officials still appear intent on using it for illegal gains, it was disclosed on Wednesday.The United Nations has been trying to close down the $64 billion program since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussein from power. It stepped up its efforts after an outside investigation found evidence of mismanagement and corruption by UN officials, contractors and SaddamÂ’s government.
| Little of which has been detailed in public. Is the shutdown a way of deep-sixing the records? |
However, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in a Dec. 8 letter made public on Wednesday, said that task had been complicated by allegations from two vendors that authentication documents needed to clear some of the last payments “have been improperly withheld by authorities in Iraq.”
“Furthermore it has also been alleged that payments have been requested from the vendors as a condition for authentication,” added Annan, whose term as UN leader ended on Dec. 30. “These complaints have been shared with the Iraqi authorities but regrettably we have received no response,” Annan said in the letter, addressed to the Security Council.
| And Kojo needs his cut. |