2008 Woodie Awards
The Volcker Report: No Oil For Food Abuses Commited by U.N.
Adam Hynick
Issue date: 4/8/05 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Paul Volcker, chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee, recently vindicated the United Nations of accusations of irregularities and corrupt practices within its own Iraqi Oil-For-Food Recovery Plan.
The Oil-For-Food program was initially created in 1996 to purchase and distribute 46 billion dollars worth of humanitarian assistance by selling Iraqi oil. It was meant to compensate innocent Iraqi citizens for the sanctions placed upon Iraq for its alleged construction of weapons of mass destruction facilities during the 1990's. It also provided essential food and medicines to 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people.
The program was ended in May 2003 after the Security Council lifted the sanctions following the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
Volcker discussed his findings recently in the Wall Street Journal, stating that the "U.N. administration of the program appears to be free of systematic or widespread abuse, but documents concerning other sectors of the program do not make for pleasant readings". Volcker took swift action to investigate the O.F.F. Plan in Iraq because of accusations directed at Cyprian national and former U.N. official Benan Sevan.
Sevan, like many other officials involved in the plan, was supposedly asking Iraqi businessmen for large oil allocations that would ultimately benefit only himself financially, an action declared by Volcker to be completely "ethically improper" and in violation of almost every rule of the U.N. Investigations into the Iraq Oil-For-Food Plan are still being conducted, but no new reports are scheduled for release in the near future.
In other U.N. news, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has re-scheduled his meeting with the Chief Executives Board that brings together the heads of the UN system of organizations to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Saddened by the loss of Paul II, Annan stated that "...I was always struck by his commitment to having the United Nations become, as he said during his address to the General Assembly in 1995, "a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a `family of nations.'"
The Oil-For-Food program was initially created in 1996 to purchase and distribute 46 billion dollars worth of humanitarian assistance by selling Iraqi oil. It was meant to compensate innocent Iraqi citizens for the sanctions placed upon Iraq for its alleged construction of weapons of mass destruction facilities during the 1990's. It also provided essential food and medicines to 60 percent of Iraq's 27 million people.
The program was ended in May 2003 after the Security Council lifted the sanctions following the U.S. military occupation of Iraq.
Volcker discussed his findings recently in the Wall Street Journal, stating that the "U.N. administration of the program appears to be free of systematic or widespread abuse, but documents concerning other sectors of the program do not make for pleasant readings". Volcker took swift action to investigate the O.F.F. Plan in Iraq because of accusations directed at Cyprian national and former U.N. official Benan Sevan.
Sevan, like many other officials involved in the plan, was supposedly asking Iraqi businessmen for large oil allocations that would ultimately benefit only himself financially, an action declared by Volcker to be completely "ethically improper" and in violation of almost every rule of the U.N. Investigations into the Iraq Oil-For-Food Plan are still being conducted, but no new reports are scheduled for release in the near future.
In other U.N. news, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has re-scheduled his meeting with the Chief Executives Board that brings together the heads of the UN system of organizations to attend the funeral of Pope John Paul II. Saddened by the loss of Paul II, Annan stated that "...I was always struck by his commitment to having the United Nations become, as he said during his address to the General Assembly in 1995, "a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a `family of nations.'"