June 23, 2005
U.N. Supply Officer Quits Under a Cloud
By WARREN HOGE and JUDITH MILLER 
UNITED NATIONS, June 22 - The United Nations announced on Wednesday that a senior United Nations purchasing officer who was under investigation for possible conflict of interest had resigned.
Though the investigation of the official, Alexander V. Yakovlev, did not involve the oil-for-food program for Iraq, a panel studying allegations of mismanagement and corruption in the program had his office sealed for examination by its inspectors.
After a report by Fox News, the United Nations confirmed on Monday that Mr. Yakovlev, who worked in the procurement offices that serve peacekeeping missions, was being scrutinized by its internal oversight office because of allegations that a company that he had awarded a contract to later gave a job to his son.
Marie Okabe, an agency spokeswoman, said on Wednesday that Mr. Yakovlev faxed his resignation on Tuesday night. She said that the investigation would continue and that Mr. Yakovlev, a 52-year-old Russian with 20 years at the United Nations, had promised his full cooperation. 
Mr. Yakovlev did not return a message left on his office telephone requesting comment.
The conflict of interest issue involved a contract given in 1999 to IHC Services Inc. of New York. 
Ezio Testa, the president of IHC, said the contract, for portable generators for peacekeeping operations in 1999 and 2000 for a total of $3 million, was the only professional dealing his company had with Mr. Yakovlev.
Mr. Testa said Mr. Yakovlev generally worked in other departments than the one Mr. Testa dealt with but it was very normal of me to stumble into him on visits to the United Nations' procurement offices. 
Mr. Testa said that Mr. Yakovlev's son, Dimitry, worked for three weeks in 2001 moving boxes at a company warehouse in Queens and that a year later Mr. Yakovlev mentioned that Dimitry was graduating college with a degree in finance and wanted a small international experience before returning home to Moscow.
IHC supplies industrial products to military forces, private aid organizations and the United States government, and Mr. Testa said much of its work involves shipments to Africa and the Middle East. He said Dimitry Yakovlev worked from December 2002 to June 2003 as an intern in a part of his operation that was upgrading its accounting systems.
IHC had no connection to the oil-for-food program. In two reports from the panel investigating the program, Mr. Yakovlev was mentioned for his help in providing information on the procurement office's rules and procedures. He was also cited as the line officer in the hiring of a company that inspected oil-for-food supplies and that employed Secretary General Kofi Annan's son Kojo. But the report said he had not known Mr. Annan's son worked there.
Statements and memos from Mr. Yakovlev formed part of the basis for the panel's finding that Joseph J. Stephanides, a senior official in the department of political affairs, had violated procurement procedures. Mr. Stephanides was dismissed by Mr. Annan this month and is appealing the firing.
Asked why the panel had sealed Mr. Yakovlev's office, Reid Morden, the panel's executive director, said it was unrelated to the conflict of interest issue. We've been taking a look at him for various other things that have emerged in our inquiry, he said. We're looking at other things where his veracity would be in question.
He said the panel was not questioning Mr. Yakovlev's information in the Stephanides case. We stand behind our reports and what he and others said about Joseph Stephanides, Mr. Morden said. In any investigation, you can get an informant who is credible about some things but does not have totally clean hands. More recently, we have been taking another look at him.
Warren Hoge reported from the United Nations for this article, and Judith Miller from New York.