Annan's Son Will Repay Ghana for Fees on Car 
By Warren Hoge
January 25, 2006
The New York Times
Original Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/international/25nations.html

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 24 - Kojo Annan, the son of Secretary General Kofi Annan, will repay the government of Ghana import duties he avoided by falsely claiming that a Mercedes he bought was for his father, his lawyer disclosed Tuesday.
The automobile was not for the secretary general's own personal use and therefore the exemption was not justified, William W. Taylor III, the lawyer, said in a Jan. 19 letter from his Washington office to the customs services in Accra, the Ghanaian capital.
I write to inform you that Mr. Kojo Annan wishes to make full payment of the amount due to the government of Ghana as a result of this transaction, the letter read.
The transaction first became public in a September report by the committee led by Paul A. Volcker investigating corruption and mismanagement in the oil-for-food program.
The report said that Kojo Annan had admired the luxury station wagon at a Geneva car show in March 1998 and arranged to purchase it and have it shipped to Ghana in November.
By using his father's name, he obtained a $6,541 discount from Mercedes and avoided paying $14,103 in import duties.
The Volcker committee was interested in the case because it was trying to establish whether there was any connection between Kofi Annan and the award of an oil-for-food contract to Cotecna Inspection Services, the Swiss company that had employed his son.
In the report, investigators said they first suspected that the car might be a payoff. They concluded, however, that the senior Mr. Annan had not known about the purchase and his son's use of his name.
Kojo Annan told investigators that he had misrepresented the ownership of the car to Abdoulie Janneh, a family friend who was a representative of the United Nations Development Program in Ghana, to get him to sign the necessary waiver request.
Adam L. Rosman, a partner of Mr. Taylor, the lawyer, said in an e-mail message on Tuesday that the automobile had been damaged beyond repair as a result of an accident in November 2005.
He also said that although Kojo Annan was willing to compensate Ghana, he did not intend to pay back the discount that Mercedes gave him for the faked ownership claim.