An independent investigation whose report was released yesterday cleared UN secretary-general Kofi Annan of wrong doing in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. It concluded that Annan was misled by his son about the latter's involvement with a company that was awarded a contract with the oil-for-food program.
The report accused the company of making "false statements to the public, the United Nations and the committee by asserting that Kojo Annan had resigned his consultancy on Oct. 9, 1998," when in fact he had been on a retainer afterward, reports The International Herald Tribune
The report did fault the secretary-general for not sufficiently investigating the scandal before appointing the independent commission. Annan probably should've just appointed the independent commission from the beginning. Conflict of interest is not simply about the actual fact but also about appearances.
Note: I do have an essay in the works about the large reform package recently proposed by Secretary-General Annan.
No comments:
Post a Comment