Oil-for-Food Head Resigns Before Explosive Report
Reuters ^ | August 7, 2005 | Evelyn Leopold
The former head of the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program resigned from the United Nations on Sunday, hours before he is expected to be accused of getting kickbacks from the $67 billion operation.
A U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, plans to release on Monday its third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian program for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003.
Benon Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader and of refusing to cooperate with the Volcker panel, his attorney Eric Lewis said. Sevan has denied the allegations.
On Sunday, Lewis distributed a letter from Sevan, 67, to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigning from his current job, which he was given after he retired.
The $1-a-year post carries immunity and was meant to ensure he would cooperate with the probe. But Sevan may have preempted a dismissal from this arrangement as the United Nations in the past has taken action against staff fingered in the Volcker report.
Sevan blamed the secretary-general and his staff for not defending the program and making him a scapegoat.
"I fully understand the pressure that you are under, and that there are those who are trying to destroy your reputation as well as my own, but sacrificing me for political expediency will never appease our critics or help you or the Organization," Sevan wrote.
He said that the program, which supplied food and other goods to 27 million Iraqis, was often caught between conflicting mandates given by the U.N. Security Council, which supervised it, and national interests of those trying to do business with Iraq.
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