UN oil for food – latest reports

The release of the main report of the Volcker inquiry into the United Nations’ oil for food scandal should provide support for reformers within the global body who are seeking tougher auditing controls. US ambassador John Bolton has called for an expanded independent UN audit board role. Volcker’s continuing embarrassing revelations have already sparked piecemeal reforms: the introduction of whistleblower rules aims to enable a new Ethics Office to protect staff who report misconduct. The UN secretariat also wants directors and senior officials to complete financial disclosure forms. In his report, Volcker blamed shared powers over the Oil for Food Programme by the UN Security Council and its secretariat for creating a power vacuum that was filled by Saddam Hussein. “Sadly, those weaknesses were aggravated by unethical and corrupt behaviour at key points,” he stressed, highlighting the activities of programme executive director Benon Sevan and former procurement officer AlexanderYakovlev. They had already been criticised by a third interim report. Sevan allegedly received bribes linked to his job worth US$147,184 from 1998-2002, funnelled via a brother-in-law of former UN secretary general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Efraim (Fred) Nadler. Meanwhile, Volcker claimed that since 2000 “almost US$1.3 million” had been wired into an Antiguan account controlled by Yakovlev, a Russian former UN procurement officer, “from UN contractors in other UN programmes”.