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11/26/2004 Archived Entry: "Annan's Son Took Payments Through 2004"

Posted by steve @ 12:54 PM EST [Link]

DON'T GO AGAINST THE FAMILY: (via Instapundit) The media may have lost interest in the story -- assuming they ever were interested -- but some won't let go of the Oil for Food scandal. The New York Sun reports today that Kojo Annan's involvement in the scandal keeps on growing. It seems the son of the UN secretary general was receiving money until early this year.

One of the next big chapters in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal will involve the family of the secretary-general, Kofi Annan, whose son turns out to have been receiving payments as recently as early this year from a key contractor in the oil-for-food program.

The secretary-general's son, Kojo Annan, was previously reported to have worked for a Swiss-based company called Cotecna Inspection Services SA, which from 1998-2003 held a lucrative contract with the U.N. to monitor goods arriving in Saddam Hussein's Iraq under the oil-for-food program. But investigators are now looking into new information suggesting that the younger Annan received far more money over a much longer period, even after his compensation from Cotecna had reportedly ended.

The importance of this story involves not only undisclosed conflicts of interest, but the question of the role of the secretary-general himself, at a time when talk is starting to be heard around the U.N. that it is time for him to resign, and the staff labor union is in open rebellion against "senior management."

"What other bombshells are out there being hidden from the public and U.N. member governments?" asked an investigator on Rep. Henry Hyde's International Relations Committee, which has held hearings on oil-for-food.

The Annan family reminds me of Jesse Jackson's family.

Read on.