Former Oil-for-Food Chief Resigns From United Nations
Benon Sevan is expected to be accused of receiving kickbacks in an interim report today.
From Reuters

August 8, 2005

UNITED NATIONS — The former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program resigned from the world body Sunday, hours before he is expected to be accused of receiving kickbacks in the $64-billion operation. 

A U.N.-established Independent Inquiry Committee, led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker, plans today to release its third interim report on allegations of corruption in the humanitarian program for Iraq, which began in 1996 and ended in 2003. 

Benon V. Sevan, the former executive director of the program, is to be accused of getting cash for steering Iraqi oil contracts to an Egyptian trader and of refusing to cooperate with Volcker's panel, Sevan attorney Eric Lewis said. 

Sevan has denied the allegations. 

On Sunday, Lewis distributed a letter from Sevan, 67, to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan resigning from his current position, which he was given after he retired from the oil-for-food job. 

The $1-a-year post carried immunity and was meant to ensure that he would cooperate with the inquiry. In his letter, Sevan blamed the secretary-general and his staff for not defending the program and making him a scapegoat. 

I fully understand the pressure that you are under, and that there are those who are trying to destroy your reputation as well as my own, but sacrificing me for political expediency will never appease our critics or help you or the Organization, Sevan wrote. 

He said that the program, which supplied food and other goods to Iraqis, was often caught between conflicting mandates given by the U.N. Security Council, which supervised its operation, and national interests of those trying to do business with Iraq. 

The Volcker panel was commissioned by Annan to examine charges of corruption in the program, which was designed to ease the humanitarian impact of U.N. sanctions imposed in August 1990 after Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. 

The panel, in a Feb. 3 interim report, expressed suspicion about four payments, amounting to $160,000, that Sevan had declared to the United Nations as funds from his now-deceased aunt. 

Sevan said Sunday that it was not credible that he would have compromised his career for $160,000 after handling billions of dollars in the program.