DIRECTOR OF “OIL FOR FOOD” PROGRAM CHARGED WITH TAKING BRIBES,
VIDEO HERE
Bonon Sevaon was charged in the Oil for Food scandal yesterday for pocketing $150,000 of the assumed billions of lost dollars from the free for all at the UN. The BBC has strong words for this corrupt outfit in New York:
Each time Paul Volker delivers one of his interim reports, the United Nations receives another body blow and its tarnished reputation suffers yet again.
This was the third of Mr Volcker’s reports and in many ways the most damning yet.
Until now there was the strong whiff of scandal, but no direct blame.
This report, though, pointed the finger straight at the former head of the oil-for-food programme, Benon Sevan.
It concluded that Mr Sevan “corruptly benefited” from his role with the UN – that he had received kickbacks worth almost $150,000 from a small company called Amep, who he had helped profit from the sale of Iraqi oil.
An ex-procurement officer was also charged:
Ex-procurement officer Alexander Yakovlev was in a U.S. federal court pleading guilty to a raft of charges — his diplomatic immunity having been withdrawn. (Full story)
Yakovlev resigned from the United Nations in June amid further allegations that he helped get his son a job with a firm doing business with the world body.
The oil-for-food program’s former chief, Benon Sevan — accused in the report of receiving more than $147,000 in kickbacks — was believed to be in Cyprus. The program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, enabled Iraq to sell oil in return for humanitarian goods such as food, medicine and supplies.