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AUSTRALIAOil for food inquiry ends Top officials from Australia's monopoly wheat exporter deceived the United Nations and likely broke Australian law by paying more than $200 million to Iraq's former dictatorship under the world body's discredited oil-for-food program, an inquiry reported Nov. 27. Former Judge Terence Cole said he found no evidence of wrongdoing by government officials in his investigation but recommended police investigate 11 executives from AWB Ltd. and a 12th from another company. The Australian government launched the inquiry after AWB -- formerly the state-owned Australian Wheat Board -- was named as the largest payer of kickbacks in a corruption-ridden U.N. program. From 1999-2003, AWB executives allegedly authorized $222 million in bogus transport fees to a Jordanian trucking company, Alia Transport, that was part-owned by Saddam Hussein's government. Payments to Saddam were illegal under U.N. sanctions. AWB allegedly inflated the cost of wheat it was charging to the oil-for-food program by as much as $50 per ton to cover the bogus transport fees, which the Iraqi Grain Board demanded as a condition of lucrative grain contracts.
The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 2, 2006 |
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