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| UN Spokesman's Statements About Allegations About Kojo Annan |
| 2004-10-27 |
| From the UN website, excerpted from the Daily Press Briefing on September 24, 2004, conducted by Fred Eckhard, spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Question: Can you comment on the Wall Street Journal's story on the Kojo Annan, Cotecna connection? Spokesman: The only new information in that article was that Kojo Annan was on a retainer for Cotecna through 1999. And, we understand, this is not unusual for a competitive company to put a departing employee on such a retainer with the pledge not to compete with the company. Kojo Annan was, at that time, setting up his own company. It does not change our assessment that in awarding the contract, the United Nations contract to Cotecna in 1998, there was no knowledge, even on the United Nations Committee on Contracts or the Procurement Officer handling that contract, that Kojo Annan had any link to Cotecna. And that was a finding of the Under-Secretary-General for Management, Joseph Connor, in early '99, when this link became a subject of a press account. Question: Wasn't the United Nations only recently saying that the relationship ended with the official real beginning of the Oil-for-Food Programme? And also, the article says that it wasn't just an agreement, but that he was receiving money. Spokesman: His last contract with Cotecna ended in the end of 1998. This retainer agreement then continued through '99, but the contract, which went to Cotecna in late '98, I repeat, was done without knowledge of Kojo's relation to that company, which, at the time, involved responsibilities in West Africa. Question: Was Kofi Annan aware, though, of this particular continuing connection? Spokesman: I'm not sure the Secretary-General knew that detail. As I said, the bidding process here went on with no knowledge that that was the case. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |