The contractor executive in the UN oil-for-food program who claimed in a 1998 memo that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan had supported an award to the company where his son Kojo worked now denies ever talking about the bid with Annan.
In a statement issued by his lawyers, the executive, Michael Wilson, said on Wednesday that he "never met or had any discussion with the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, on the issue of the bid for the UN contract," not "during the bidding process or at any time prior to the award of the contract."
The Dec. 4, 1998, memo from Wilson, disclosed on Tuesday, said that in late November 1998 he had conversations with "the SG and his entourage" and was told that his company, Cotecna Inspection Services, could count on their support.
Annan, who denies having known about Cotecna's bid, said on Thursday that he would leave the matter to Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who heads a UN-appointed panel that is investigating the program.
He urged reporters "to resist the temptation to substitute yourself for the Volcker commission."
In a report on March 29, the Volcker panel concluded that Annan had not influenced the awarding of the contract. On Wednesday, the committee said it was "urgently reviewing" the case in light of the December 1998 memo.
Congressional committees investigating the program have been exploring whether Kojo Annan and Wilson had tried to coordinate their accounts of what they told UN officials about Cotecna's bid for the contract, worth US$10 million annually.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
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