NEW YORK, March 23 (UPI) -- United Nations chief Kofi Annan's son got $300,000 from a Swiss firm that won a $60 million contract with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, it was reported Wednesday.
Cotecna, the Swiss company that won a $60 million contract under the U.N. oil-for-food program, gave Kojo Annan at least $300,000, almost double previous estimates. Payments were arranged so their source and destination were obscured, the Financial Times said.
The new revelations come as an independent U.N. investigation, led by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, into the alleged corruption in the program prepares to publish a new report.
The report will address allegations the younger Annan's family connections helped Cotecna win its contract, the newspaper said in its investigation, which was jointly conducted by with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.
Kojo Annan worked for the firm in Nigeria until December 1997 and was later retained as a consultant. Both have denied impropriety.
