UN: The head of the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq and a senior UN official who dealt with contracts for the programme have been suspended following an independent investigation that accused them of misconduct, a UN spokesman said yesterday.
Mr Benon Sevan, who was in charge of the $64 billion (€50 billion) humanitarian programme, and Mr Joseph Stephanides, who heads the UN security council affairs division, were informed on Friday that they had been suspended with pay, UN spokesman Mr Fred Eckhard said.
Mr Sevan and Mr Stephanides were told they would receive a letter this week "laying out the charges against them", which will allow them to defend themselves before UN disciplinary bodies, he said.
Mr Sevan ran the oil-for-food programme from 1996 until it ended in November 2003 and retired from the UN last year but remains on the payroll for $1 a year to help with the investigation. Mr Stephanides is scheduled to retire in about five months.
An investigation led by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Mr Paul Volcker accused Mr Sevan in an interim report released last week of a "grave conflict of interest", saying his conduct in soliciting oil deals from Iraq for a friend's company was "ethically improper and seriously undermined the integrity of the UN."
Mr Volcker did not say that Mr Sevan received kickbacks, but expressed concern about the source of $160,000 (€125,000) in cash which Mr Sevan said he received from his aunt in Cyprus from 1999-2003.
Mr Volcker said he was still investigating "the scope and extent of benefits" that Mr Sevan received from his requests that a small Swiss-based oil company, African Middle East Petroleum, be given a chance to buy Iraqi oil. The company, run by a nephew of the former UN secretary general Mr Boutros Boutros-Ghali, made a profit of $1.5 million.