Volcker Extension

The UN is considering extending the term of Volcker Committee, which ends on November 30, at least by a month.
This could be crucial to national inquiries into ‘Oil for Food’ corruption allegations now underway. A number of countries have already begun probes into misconduct stemming from the Volcker investigation, including the United States, France, Britain, Switzerland, Australia and India.
Documents collected by Volcker’s team over 18 months were set to revert back to their initial sources on November 30, when the inquiry’s mandate expires.
One Volcker panel member Swiss, Mark Pieth, has called on the UN to ensure that a part of the investigation’s secretariat remained in place for three months to manage access to the documents for prosecutors around the world.
Transparency International has also called on the UN to “keep all evidence compiled in a probe of the scandal ridden oil-for-food program”.
A UN spokesperson said the Committee, which inquired into allegations of corruption in the now defunct Iraqi oil-for-food programme, will not take up new issues, indicating that the purpose would be for the UN to try to get as many documents as possible.
The Committee is expected to return to the concerned governments and agencies the documents which were given to it on the understanding that their sources would not be shared or revealed.
The spokesperson said no decision has as yet been made on which documents would be transferred and discussions are ongoing between UN’s legal department, the Volcker Committee and the Iraqi government, indicating that consent of Baghdad would be necessary for transfer of some of the documents.