Curious

The only UN jerk-off shitcanned for participating in the Oil-For-Food Scandal has been reinstated by the UN.

Joseph Stephanides was fired on May 31 after a U.N.-appointed inquiry led by former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker accused him of improperly steering an oil-for-food contract to a British firm.

The mid-level aide maintained he was acting on behalf of unnamed superiors in advising Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd. to lower an open bid to win a contract.

A joint staff-management disciplinary panel reviewing his dismissal had recommended he be reinstated and given a written apology and two years' pay in damages.

Based on the review, Secretary-General Kofi Annan decided to rescind the dismissal and effectively restore four months of pay to Stephanides, who had been scheduled to retire in September.

But Annan rejected an apology and damages. "The secretary-general still maintains his position that Mr. Stephanides has violated the procurement rules," a U.N. official said.

{...}Annan, himself under attack for mismanagement of the Iraq oil-for-food program, dismissed Stephanides after Volcker's February 3 report. It accused him of colluding with Britain's then-U.N. ambassador, John Weston, by suggesting Lloyd's Register Inspection Ltd. would win a $4.5 million contract by lowering its bid.

While French firm Bureau Veritas was the low bidder, U.N. officials decided they could not select a French firm because they had recently given another contract to a French bank and hired a Frenchman as a U.N. oil overseer for the program, Volcker's report said.

Christopher Burnham, the U.N. undersecretary-general for management, said in a letter to Stephanides that he violated a U.N. requirement of impartiality by "advising the British Mission how much lower the Lloyd's bid needed to be."{...}

Hmmm. Now, there's something I'm finding curious in all of this: where's Stephanides' payola? How much did he get from Lloyd's---and where did he put it? Everyone else in this deal made some coin: there's no mention in the article of Stephanides' having received any cash. Never mind that Kojo Annan received $200K from a Swiss firm for steering Oil for Food business their way and his father hasn't been so much as slapped on the hand for it; never mind that Benon Sevon made some cash with oil payments, and he was allowed to resign; it's simply interesting to me that they would fire the one guy who didn't receive any cash for his efforts.

That really doesn't make much sense, does it?

Unless he's the patsy. Then it makes a whole lot of sense.

Hmmph. I don't know.

But I do know that I love that I just had the opportunity to use the word "patsy." I'm, like, all Oliver Stone-ish now with the conspiracy theory.

Posted by Kathy at November 15, 2005 11:41 PM | TrackBack