|
Swiss Firm Suspected of Fraud Paid Koko 50 Large
| Golly gee, look who's finally on the story. Now that the election's over, the NYT has to have something to write about. |
A Swiss company that is being investigated on suspicion of fraud and abuses in the United Nations' oil-for-food program paid the son of Secretary General Kofi Annan more than $50,000 for consulting at United Nations meetings and other projects in the year it won a lucrative oil-for-food contract, investigators said yesterday.
Reeeeally? When did that happen?
Thanks for breaking that story! |
Representatives of the company, Cotecna Inspection Services, which is based in Geneva, previously said that Kojo Annan, the secretary general's son, had no involvement in any United Nations contracts. But billing records from Kojo Annan, 29, and other documents provided by Cotecna to House and Senate committees investigating the United Nations program show that in 1998, he traveled to United Nations meetings in New York and Durban, South Africa, to develop "contacts" and work on unspecified "specific projects." In December 1998, Cotecna, which is privately held, won a $4.8 million United Nations contract to monitor goods shipped to Iraq. Ginny Wolfe, a spokeswoman for Cotecna, confirmed that Kojo Annan had attended these meetings but said that he had done so "to make contacts and build relationships with individuals who were important to know for purposes of Cotecna business marketing in Africa."
| That's the second-order lie, one more will be coming before we get at the truth. |
A Cotecna statement said it was "confident" that the inquiries "will reveal that Cotecna's actions were at all times ethical, lawful and professional."
Cotecna deplored the leak of its confidential information, but pledged to continue cooperating with the Congressional investigations and the inquiry of an independent panel led by Paul A. Volcker, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. On Thursday, investigators disclosed that Mr. Annan had used a Cotecna credit card for travel and other expenses that totaled $54,700 for his consulting in 1998. That included $17,000 for expenses incurred in extra hours of work from July through October for the United Nations-related trips, the investigators said. "That's not bad pay for a junior consultant who was supposedly being reimbursed at a rate of $500 a day for five days of work a month," one said.
| That's a lot of billable hours and travel on steerage-class airlines... |
Investigators said correspondence between Kojo Annan and Cotecna revealed disputes about what were legitimate expenses.
"That's a lot of our money to put into Durban's titty bars!"
"Look, do y'want the contacts or not?" |
They said billing records suggested that he was not reluctant to use his name and father's post to commercial advantage. In one memorandum requesting compensation for eight days of work in July 1998, Kojo Annan included six days "during my father's visit to Nigeria."
"He needed me there. Nobody holds his coat like I do."
"In a Lagos titty bar?" |
| "Especially in a Lagos titty bar." |
After a United Nations meeting of African members of the nonaligned movement in Durban, he wrote that "many contacts were established at the presidential and political levels, ministerial levels and with certain influential people."
Posted by: Steve White 2004-12-03 |
