US seeks probe of bribery allegations at UN agency

By Frances Williams in Geneva 
April 30 2005 
The Financial Times
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/dba40c62-b913-11d9-bfeb-00000e2511c8.html http://news.ft.com/cms/s/dba40c62-b913-11d9-bfeb-00000e2511c8.html
http://news.ft.com/c.gif \* MERGEFORMATINET
The US has called for a full investigation by the World Intellectual Property Organisation into allegations of bribery concerning the award of a SFr70m contract for a building renovation project.
The allegations, which are being examined by a Geneva judge, centre on Michael Wilson, a Ghanaian businessman and former vice-president of Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspection company implicated in the United Nations oil-for-food scandal.
The case is the latest controversy to blight the UN after an independent commission criticised links between Cotecna and Kojo Annan, the son of the UN secretary-general.
Mark Lagon, US deputy assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs, told the FT the Wipo case needs to be seriously investigated.
The US and other governments voiced their dissatisfaction with the UN intellectual property agency's handling of the affair when Kamil Idris, its director-general, met 14 UN donors earlier this week.

The Swiss investigation, has established that Mr Wilson was paid SFr4m-SFr5m ($3.4m-$4.2m, ¬ 2.6m-¬ 3.3m, £1.8m-£2.2m) by a consortium of three Geneva companies - Béric, Perret and Seydoux-DMB - in connection with their winning bid for the Wipo contract.
Jea
n-Bernard Schmid, the Geneva judge in charge of the investigation, told the FT the payment to Mr Wilson had aroused his suspicions, because it went well beyond a normal consultancy fee and did not appear in the consortium's costings for the project.
He later found that Mr Wilson had transferred SFr300,000 to the account of Khamis Suedi, a Tanzanian assistant director-general at Wipo and special adviser to Mr Idris. Mr Wilson was unavailable for comment.
Edward Kwakwe, Wipo's legal counsel, said Mr Suedi had told the judge and Mr Idris that he and Mr Wilson were long-time business associates and that the payment was linked to a private venture.
He added that Mr Suedi had not been involved in the award of the contract, which had been handled correctly.
Mr Suedi has claimed that his association with Mr Wilson was approved by the previous Wipo director-general, the late Arpad Bogsch.
US o
fficials said this week they were not satisfied with Wipo's response to the allegations, including the mutually arranged departure of Mr Suedi from Wipo this month.