Oil, food probe ready to hand over prosecutors reports

Oil, food probe ready to hand over prosecutors reports

Agencies, New York/Jakarta

The independent panel investigating the United Nation (UN) oil-
for-food program for Iraq has issued a report that prosecutors in
66 countries can use against 2,200 companies accused of diverting
US$1.8 billion to Saddam Hussein's government.

The 623-page survey on Thursday exposed how more than half the
companies doing business with Iraq wittingly or unwittingly fed
Saddam's need for cash through straight bribes or surcharges on
oil sales.

"The (UN) secretariat, the Security Council and UN contractors
failed most grievously in their responsibilities," said Paul
Volcker, the former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman, who headed the
probe, which issued the last of five reports.

The list included firms from Vietnam to the United States as
well as European giants DaimlerChrysler, three subsidiaries of
Siemens and Volvo. All companies and traders contacted by the
panel denied the allegations except for one oil firm and 26
suppliers of goods, the report said.

And the document castigated French bank BNP-Paribas, which
managed funds for the $64 billion program, for a host of
irregularities, from its fees to its failure to expose
wrongdoing. The bank denied any wrongdoing.

The humanitarian program, which began in 1996 and ended in
2003, was designed to ease the impact on ordinary Iraqis of UN
sanctions, imposed when Baghdad's troops invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Iraq was allowed to sell oil in order to buy food, medicine and
many other goods.

South African Judge Richard Goldstone, another commissioner of
the UN-established Independent Inquiry Committee, said archives
would be turned over to the United Nations but also shared with
law enforcement authorities.

"Anything that we are able legally and morally to share with a
prosecutor or authority of any country, we will be more than
willing to do that," Goldstone told Reuters.

Some nations, including the United States, Britain, France and
Switzerland have initiated prosecutions. Texas oil tycoon Oscar
Wyatt, former chairman of founder of Coastal Corp., pleaded not
guilty on Thursday in New York to charges that he conspired to
pay several million dollars in kickbacks.

Indonesia's publicly listed oil and gas company PT Medco
Energi International -- whose trading subsidiary PT Medco Duta
Indonesia was on the list -- denied accusations that its
subsidiary had bribed Saddam's administration for securing oil
contracts during the program.

Medco president director Hilmi Panigoro told The Jakarta Post
by phone on Friday that the accusation was misleading because the
Iraqi administration at that time had required all companies to
pay a surcharge for every barrel of oil secured from the country.

"The extra money was not a bribe. It was an official surcharge
imposed by the administration to all companies around the world
that wanted to get oil from Iraq. The accusation is absurd and
misleading," he said.

Hilmi added that Medco had secured some one million barrels
per quarter during the program.

Besides Medco Duta, another Indonesian company is also on the
list of the 2,200 companies.