June 22, 2005
UN Purchasing Officer Resigns
By REUTERS 
Filed at 2:44 p.m. ET
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A senior U.N. purchasing officer unexpectedly submitted his resignation and his office was then sealed by investigators into the scandal-tainted oil-for-food program for Iraq, the United Nations announced on Wednesday.
But the two events are not necessary related as Alexander Yakovlev, the procurement official, had been cooperating with the investigation on contract bids for Iraq, led by Paul Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman.
Rather Yakovlev was the subject of a separate U.N. inquiry following allegations by Fox News that he helped his son get a job with a firm that once did business with the United Nations but not under the oil-for-food program.
Yakovlev faxed his resignation on Tuesday night, a day after U.N. officials announced a probe into the claims, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said.
Yakovlev, according to Fox, helped his son get a job with the New York-based IHC Services, which had supplied equipment and other services to the United nations.
But there is no evidence IHC was involved in the now-defunct $67 billion oil-for-food program, which supplied food, medicine and other goods to ordinary Iraqis suffering under U.N. sanctions imposed in 1990 after Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait.
Okabe gave no reason for Yakovlev's resignation and said he was informed that the U.N. investigation, by the Office of Internal Oversight Services, would go ahead anyway.
She said he had promised to continue cooperation with the Volcker panel, which had interviewed Yakovlev extensively, characterizing him as someone who obeyed U.N. regulations in awarding contracts under the oil-for-food program.
The contract under scrutiny by the Volcker panel was awarded to the Swiss firm Cotecna, a goods inspection company that had employed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo. There is no evidence Annan interfered with the awarding of the contract in late 1998 but the Volcker panel is still investigation events leading up to the bidding process.
Under the oil-for-food program, former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was allowed to sell oil to buy civilian goods while the country was under sanctions. The United Nations administered the program but Baghdad could choose recipients of oil and companies supplying goods.
Since the end of the 2003 war, Iraq has released lists and charts of bribes from the former Iraqi government to political groups and individuals in a quest to get the sanctions lifted. Several congressional committees are investigating the program.
Former CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, in an extensive report last October, found that corruption in the program amounted to some $1.7 billion.
But he said Saddam made most of his money, another $8 billion, through oil exports outside of the program to Jordan and Syria, oil flows known to the U.N. Security Council.