UN oil for food report identifies UK company kickbacks

The independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations’ Iraq Oil for Food programme scandal has claimed 14 British companies paid kickbacks to the Saddam Hussein regime to secure contracts to supply humanitarian supplies. There were also four British companies that paid “surcharges” to secure contracts to lift oil from Iraq to help buy medicines, food and other essentials. These payments netted Iraq’s former regime more than US$1.5 billion before it was toppled by the 2003 invasion. In all, 2,200 companies are accused of making illicit payments. In the UK, they include two British-based sections of Glaxo Wellcome: Glaxo Smithkline Walls House paying US$834,390 in kickbacks to secure US$9.1 million business selling ‘drugs, medicine, purinethol’; and Glaxo Wellcome Export Ltd, (also of France), paying US$257,596 for US$2.8 million’s worth of medicines contracts. The companies did not comment on the claims from the committee headed by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Also Smithkline Beecham International supposedly paid US$835,935 for a medicines contract worth US$9.1 million, (no comment). Meanwhile oil company Sinochem International Oil London Co paid a US$5 million surcharge and Marbel Resources Ltd US$3 million. The Volcker committee said Iraq generally demanded kickbacks of around 10%; they “were (generally) disguised by various subterfuges”, it said.