He’d be looking forward to years of dining out with his pals and collecting his pension in comfort. Instead, found guilty of fraud and conspiracy, he’s facing a 24 year sentence.
Meanwhile, at the UN, which from 1996-2003 under the label of Oil-for-Food ran the biggest scam in the history of humanitarian relief, not a single official involved in the program has even been fired, let alone prosecuted. Oil-for-Food provided cover and conduits for UN-sanctioned Saddam Hussein to pocket billions meant strictly for relief — bribing businesses, politicians and officials of the UN itself along the way. But Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who presided over this program, and Annan’s handpicked head of the program, Benon Sevan, have paid no penalties. Instead, Sevan has retired on full pension to Cyprus. And at the unreformed UN, the unrepentant and apparently unembarrassable Annan, undaunted by his own record as chief administrator of Oil-for-Fraud, has set himself up as a guru of governance — peddling a UN-corporate “Global Compact.”
The real lesson here: If you want to preside over a world-class scam, don’t do it in the private sector. Get yourself a top job at the UN.
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