Annan Blasted for Keeping His Ex - Adviser 
By The Associated Press
October 7, 2005
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Annan.html

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. employees union has criticized Secretary-General Kofi Annan for retaining his former chief-of-staff as an adviser despite accusations the aide authorized shredding three years of files on the corrupt oil-for-food program for Iraq.
The Independent Inquiry Committee led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker criticized Iqbal Riza for giving approval to shred the documents on April 22, 2004 -- a day after the U.N. Security Council authorized an investigation into the oil-for-food program.
A resolution adopted by the Staff Council, the union's executive, and obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, said keeping Riza as a personal adviser ''is inconsistent with the requirement that all those working for the United Nations organization shall be of the highest integrity.'' The resolution was passed on Tuesday.
The $64 billion oil-for-food program was the largest U.N. humanitarian aid operation, running from 1996-2003. It allowed Saddam Hussein's government to sell limited -- and eventually unlimited -- oil in exchange for food, medical supplies and other humanitarian goods as an exemption from tough U.N. sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Saddam Hussein, who could choose the buyers of Iraqi oil and the sellers of humanitarian goods, manipulated the program by awarding contracts to -- and getting kickbacks from -- favored buyers, who most often supported his regime or opposed the sanctions. He allegedly gave former government officials, journalists and U.N. officials vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.
Riza has claimed the shredded files were duplicates. But a report by the Volcker committee said in March they included documents related to the oil-for-food program that were unavailable in the U.N. records file.
Riza retired as Annan's chief-of-staff at the end of last year and then became a personal adviser to the secretary-general. He was replaced by Mark Malloch Brown.
In a report in September, Volcker said Riza ''played a greater role than he was willing to state'' in the oil-for-food program. He was ''the primary point of access to the secretary-general, routinely received copies of significant documents,'' and reviewed a March 7, 2001 memorandum on allegations of kickbacks and surcharges which he forwarded to the secretary-general.
In an Aug. 29 letter to Volcker, Riza took issue with this assessment.
He said he dealt with a vast range of subjects, which occasionally included the oil-for-food program. But it ''certainly was not a subject with which I dealt regularly or frequently.'' Riza said he told investigators that although he had no clear recollection, he had probably seen news reports of kickbacks and participated in discussions where they came up.
In late April, Annan said Riza's actions were careless, but not a deliberate attempt to impede the Volcker investigation and did not violate U.N. staff rules.
A letter from Annan to Riza dated April 19 said: ''I accept your apology and assure you that I still have great faith in your professionalism and well known integrity.''
But the Staff Council's resolution questioned Annan's assessment of Riza, stressing ''the importance of upholding the highest standards of integrity in the United Nations'' and ''the need for the senior-most management to lead by example.''
The council called on Annan ''to correct this inconsistency to demonstrate his personal commitment to restore organizational integrity.''
Volcker has also criticized Annan for his lack of oversight of the oil-for-food program and said he did not sufficiently investigate conflicts of interest involving his son. Kojo Annan was employed by a Swiss company that won an oil-for-food. But Volcker concluded there was not enough evidence to show that the secretary-general knew about the contract bid.