WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (AFP) - Swiss trade inspection firm Cotecna rejected Tuesday any charges of negligence or impropriety on its part in the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq.
Speaking at a tense hearing in front of a panel of US senators, Cotecna chief executive Robert Massey denied wrongdoing in the corruption scandal surrounding the largest-ever UN aid program.
"Cotecna enabled greatly needed humanitarian goods to reach the Iraqi people when Iraq was under UN sanctions," said Massey.
"Cotecna performed its job well and fully in accordance with its mandate," he said.
The Swiss firm defended its role in the 64-billion-dollar program, which was designed to help Iraqis cope with international sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
A former Cotecna employee told the Senate panel, however, that the company was lackadaisical in performing its duties under the program and allowed smuggling, which strengthened Hussein's regime.
The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, was plagued with scandal. The Senate panel on Monday accused former program chief Benan Sevan of pocketing 1.2 million dollars through suspect allocations of oil from Hussein's regime.
Massey and Cotecna senior vice president Andre Pruniaux were questioned by senators over the company's hiring of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's son prior to obtaining a contract to inspect program shipments.
Massey said that Kojo Annan had been hired in 1995 and had nothing to do with the oil-for-food program. "He worked on African business exclusively" for the company, said Massey.
Arthur Ventham, a Cotecna inspector at Iraq's Um Qasir port for the program, told the hearing that the company's loose inspections permitted Hussein's regime to smuggle oil out.
"It was common knowledge that 'smuggling' was going on at Um Qasir, that oil was being sold on the 'black market' to augment the regime in Iraq, the UN supposedly knew of this but had decided not to do anything," he said.
Republican Senator Norm Coleman, head of the Senate subcommittee examining the program, said that their investigations "revealed a disturbing pattern of information gaps and memory lapses."
Coleman has asked Kofi Annan to resign and criticized him for allowing the scandal to flourish on his watch. He also chided Annan for his lack of candor on the activities of his son.
Kojo Annan later released a statement repeating his denial of involvement in the oil-for-food program and insisting he had cooperated with the Senate's investigation.
He said Coleman's comments "were politically motivated and intended to harm my father and the United Nations."
02/15/2005 23:45 GMT - AFP