Prompting this update was an encouraging sign that some in the US are lamenting the lack of general interest in the scandal: News Media Still Yawning Over Rampant UN Corruption
“A large part of the media's failure to report on the UN malfeasance is that it is such a complicated case of fraud, duplicity and mendacity that reporters find themselves incapable of dumbing down the story for human consumption.”
That should make a few of the lesser nations of the world feel good about themselves; those who can actually understand and face the complexities of this issue.
TURKEY:
Turkish State Minister Kursad Tuzmen on Tuesday denied allegations that he helped some companies earn money illegally from the oil-for-food program with Iraq. "What I did was in line with our laws and regulations," he said at a news conference in Ankara.
The allegations center on the time Tuzmen was undersecretary of foreign trade in the late 1990s. The minister said all his actions were known to the government.
The comments follow a report in the Milliyet newspaper that the Prime Minister's Office had launched an investigation into allegations by the parliamentary Investigation Committee on Fuel Smuggling that Tuzmen helped four companies, Oz Ortadogu, Ram Dis Ticaret, Tekfen, and the partly government-owned TPIC, reap $123 million in unfair profits by issuing them permits to import 2.7 million tons of crude oil.
SOUTH AFRICA:
The Democratic Alliance has urged President Thabo Mbeki to broaden the Donen Commission's terms of reference to include a probe into allegations of African National Congress involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal.
The Freedom Front Plus also wants the commission's terms of reference extended.
At the moment, the terms precluded the commission from investigating the role played by senior ANC members in aiding and abetting South African-owned companies from securing oil contracts from Saddam Hussein's regime, as it had been restricted to investigating only whether kickbacks or surcharges were paid.
There is growing documentary evidence, according to the Mail and Guardian newspaper, which appeared to prove that Majali had extensive political connections, both within the ANC and the government, and that these could be used to influence the Iraqi government in an attempt to secure oil contracts.
USA:
Lawyers for Texas oilman Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. argue in court papers filed Monday that conspiracy charges against him should be dropped because they were brought only in retaliation for his being "a persistent and vocal critic of U.S. policy."
Wyatt, the founder and former chairman of Coastal Corp., has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to pay millions in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq to win contracts in the United Nations' oil-for-food program.
Charges against Wyatt must be dismissed because they were brought vindictively, Wyatt's lawyers say in papers filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The lawyers argued Wyatt had demonstrated that a large class of similarly situated people and more than 2,000 companies that paid surcharges to the Iraqi government had escaped prosecution.
AUSTRALIA:
Prime Minister John Howard expects to receive the final report from AWB oil-for-food inquiry commissioner Terence Cole on June 30.
However, Howard has told a joint party meeting he has nothing more to add on the issue until he received the report.
"There was nothing really to be added until Cole has reported," a party spokesman said.
Cole heads the commission of inquiry into $300 million in kickbacks the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) paid to dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
INDIA:
The probe into the Saddam Hussein oil-for-food payoffs against former external affairs minister Natwar Singh and Congress has reached a final stage with the Enforcement Directorate (ED) having received confessional statement from Andleeb Sehgal that he received $67,000 of the total $1,50,000 commission.
The money, paid to Indian beneficiaries of the scam, has also been traced to Aditya Khanna, who has also allegedly confessed to ED that he received a part of the payoffs. Both Khanna and Sehgal are relatives of Natwar Singh who along with his son Jagat is under investigation and had to quit as external affairs minister when the scam broke.
A total of $150,000 (about Rs 75 lakh) was paid by Swiss firm Masefield to Indian beneficiaries. Sehgal has reportedly agreed that the $67,000 (around Rs 34 lakh) he received as proceeds of the oil deal from Masefield was routed through banking channels to India.
BRITAIN:
Weir Group's involvement in the "cash for contracts" scandal in Iraq will continue to cast its shadow for "quite some time to come", the Glasgow-based company's chief executive Mark Selway recently admitted.
Despite that Britain has taken very little action on companies and individuals named in the Volker report.
In fact the British government has been accused of frustrating the Australian Cole inquiry's attempts to quiz a former United Nations customs chief who alerted Australian officials to the AWB kickbacks scandal.
PAKISTAN:
Pakistan’s anti-corruption bureau has alleged former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s involvement in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal in Iraq.
“Bhutto gave a two million commission to the regime of Saddam Hussein to win contracts worth 115 million dollars through two Sharjah-based companies she registered in 2000 and 2001,” Hassan Waseem Afzal, Chairman of the The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) alleged.
Bhutto’s spokesman, Faratullah Babar rejected the allegations saying it was part of Pakistan government’s smear campaign against Bhutto, who headed the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, (PPP) from her self exile in Dubai.
Regular updates are posted at NewsHound Oil for Food
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