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June 14, 2005
Memo Seems to Link Annan to Contract of Son's Company
By JUDITH MILLER
A memo written by someone who was then an executive of a major contractor in the United Nations oil-for-food program states that he briefly discussed the company's effort to win the contract in late 1998 with Secretary General Kofi Annan and his "entourage" and that the executive was told that "we could count on their support."
The secretary general's son, Kojo Annan, was employed by Cotecna Inspection Services, a Swiss contractor based in Geneva, and the nature of that relationship is among the issues being investigated by a panel appointed by the United Nations and several Congressional committees.
Kofi Annan has said several times that he did not discuss the contract with his son and was not involved in Cotecna's selection. A United Nations panel headed by Paul A. Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve, concluded in March that Mr. Annan had not influenced the awarding of the $10 million dollar-a-year contract to the company.
But the memo appears to raise questions about the secretary general's role.
Asked for comment, a consultant for the company who is familiar with its role in the oil-for-food program said that on Monday Cotecna provided copies of the e-mail messages and other documents that were recently discovered in company files to investigators of three Congressional committees. The committees have been looking into fraud and abuses in the $65 billion program.
The consultant said the memo was found by accident three weeks ago in a search of company archives as part of an effort to account for all of Cotecna's payments to Kojo Annan.
"No senior Cotecna officials initially had any memory of the e-mail or of such a meeting, and the memo appears to contradict what the company has said," said the company's consultant, who declined to be identified.
A copy of the memo was provided to The New York Times, and the consultant confirmed that it was authentic.
The memo, written on Dec. 4, 1998, by Michael R. Wilson, then a Cotecna vice president who was Kojo Annan's friend and a family friend of the secretary general, describes a meeting that took place during the 20th summit meeting of Francophone leaders in Paris in late November 1998.
"We had brief discussions with the SG and his entourage," the memo states. "Their collective advise was that we should respond as best as we could to the Q & A session of the 1-12-98 and that we could count on their support..."
June 14, 2005: PAJAMAS ALERT - OIL FOR FOOD
IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM THE AP:
UNITED NATIONS_Investigators of the U.N. oil-for-food program said Tuesday they are "urgently reviewing" new information suggesting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan may have known more about a contract awarded to the company that employed his son.
The December 1998 memo from Michael Wilson, then a vice president of Cotecna Inspections S.A., mentions brief discussions with Annan "and his entourage" during a summit in Paris in late 1998. "We could count on their support," the memo said.
If accurate, the memo could contradict a major finding of the Independent Inquiry Committee _ that there wasn't enough evidence to show that Annan knew about efforts by Cotecna, which employed his son Kojo, to win a contract under oil-for-food. Cotecna learned it won the contract on Dec. 11, 1998.
The statement from the Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, said it would "conduct additional investigation regarding this new information."
