November 14, 2005, 9:05 a.m.
Mercedes Mystery
More awkward questions at the U.N. which Kofi Annan isnt answering.
What does it take to get promoted by Kofi Annan at the United Nations? For
longtime U.N. staffer Abdoulie Janneh, it took less than two weeks after
his recent testimony to investigators helped clear Annan of any role in
his own son's alleged misuse of the name and privileges of the
secretary-general to ship a Mercedes duty-free into Ghana at a savings
of more than $14,000.
Janneh's statements excusing Kofi Annan were included in a report released
Sept. 7, 2005, by Paul Volcker's investigative commission into
Oil-for-Food. Twelve days after the report came out, Annan promoted Janneh
from assistant secretary-general to the U.N.'s third-highest rank of
undersecretary-general. No one has accused Janneh of wrongdoing, and
Janneh himself in an e-mail this past weekend replying to queries about
the timing of his promotion called it "An unfortunate coincidence." But as
an indicator of U.N. practice at the top, the tale of Kojo's Mercedes
continues to raise awkward questions which Kofi Annan's office has
variously ignored or refused to answer.
The Mercedes story tracks back to 1998, the second year of Kofi Annan's
tenure as secretary-general; but was not disclosed until this September,
when it turned up as a sideshow of Annan-family financial affairs in Paul
Volcker's main report on Oil-for-Food. As recounted by Volcker, the saga
of the Mercedes began with Kojo Annan's trip to a car show in Geneva,
Switzerland, in early 1998, where "he saw a Mercedes Benz vehicle that he
wished to buy for his personal use" and in order to get a U.N. discount
although he did not work for the U.N. "he set out to buy the car in his
father's name." This led later to a note dated November 13, 1998,
unearthed from a U.N. computer by the Volcker committee, in which Kofi
Annan's personal secretary, Wagaye Assebe, relayed a message from Kojo to
Kofi Annan, requesting a signature from the U.N. executive office "re: the
car he is trying to purchase under your name." Kofi Annan has told the
Volcker committee he does not recall seeing this note, and would not have
allowed anyone at the U.N. to sign such a request in his name.
But somehow or other, according to Volcker, the Mercedes purchase did take
place in Kofi Annan's name, with Kojo Annan paying $39,056 for the car
after a 14.3-percent U.N. discount. And sometime around November 13, 1998,
Kojo contacted Abdoulie Janneh, who was then serving as resident
representative of the U.N. Development Program in Kofi Annan's native
Ghana. Janneh, a Gambian who joined the U.N. in 1979, is described in the
Volcker report as an Annan "family acquaintance." Kojo Annan asked
Janneh's help in arranging to ship the Mercedes into Ghana under duty-free
privileges granted exclusively to the secretary-general. Volcker reports
that "Kojo Annan falsely represented to Mr. Janneh that the car was
intended for the personal use of the Secretary-General."
By Janneh's own account, he did not try to confirm the car's status with
any other U.N. officials, including Kofi Annan. According to Volcker: "Mr.
Janneh stated that he had no reason to doubt Kojo Annan's representation
and he relied on the bill of lading as a supporting document and
confirmation that the car was for the Secretary-General" and so "did not
seek additional confirmation about the matter." Thus, reports Volcker,
Janneh "filed a formal certification under the seal of the UNDP claiming
an exemption from customs duties" with the result that "When the car was
shipped to Ghana, Kojo Annan saved $14,013 in import duties because of the
false attestation that the car was for the personal use of the
Secretary-General."
No one, including Volcker, has accused Janneh of deliberate wrongdoing. In
a footnote, Volcker's report says that the Volcker committee "does not
conclude that Janneh was aware of the falsity of Kojo Annan's claim."
Janneh himself, in an e-mail responding to my queries says he relied on
documents for the Mercedes supplied by a car dealer in Geneva,
Switzerland, issued "in the name of the Secretary-General." He adds, "I
did not at that time consider it necessary nor was I required to refer
this matter to the Secretary-General or any other UN official." (To this,
one might add that at a U.N. where whistleblowers have not fared well, any
staffer presented with such a request by a family member of the
secretary-general would be placed in an awkward spot).
Volcker's account prompts questions, however, and the secretary-general's
apparent lack of interest in addressing them raises even more. Asked at
U.N. press briefings last week what had become of Janneh since the Volcker
report, and whether the U.N. was inquiring into his role in the Mercedes
incident, a spokesperson for the secretary-general instead of pointing
out that Janneh had been promoted offered nothing more than variations
on: "I have nothing further on any part of the Volcker investigation."
In a telephone interview Sunday, Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Mark Malloch
Brown, said the Mercedes affair is a matter not for the U.N., but
something "between Kojo and his conscience and the Ghanaian authorities."
Kojo's lawyers in a letter appended to Volcker's Sept. 7 report responded
that Kojo was "barely out of college" and "He can be forgiven for an
indiscretion of this sort, if indeed it is one."
But given that it was not Kojo Annan directly, but a U.N. official who
allegedly filed the false claim with the Ghanaian government,
misrepresenting the Mercedes as a car for the U.N. Secretary-General, the
issues are broader than that.
For starters, there's the mystery of what became of the Mercedes. If the
customs exemption was falsely claimed by the U.N., then presumably the
U.N. owes Ghana more than $14,000 on the car. And if the car documentation
was in Kofi Annan's name, has any Annan, whether Kofi or Kojo, sold the
car, or for that matter, refunded the money? Has the U.N. compensated
Ghana? If so, from what budget? And if not, then why not? While $14,000
may be counted by the U.N. secretary-general as petty cash, it is still
real money, and for millions in Africa it would be wealth beyond dreaming.
In 2000, following the stint in Ghana that included the Mercedes filing,
Janneh was promoted to U.N. assistant secretary-general and UNDP regional
director for Africa. This year, just 12 days after Janneh's testimony
helped establish to the satisfaction of the Volcker committee that Kofi
Annan knew nothing about the Mercedes shipment made in his name, Kofi
Annan promoted Janneh to undersecretary-general, with the portfolio of
executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa. The precise day
of the promotion was Sept. 19, the Monday immediately following the U.N.
World Summit this September. With all eyes still on the diplomatic
gridlock and scores of departing dignitaries, Janneh's promotion attracted
little attention. The official press release was dated Sept. 20, the same
day that a power outage at the U.N. shut down even the noon press
briefing.
Whatever one makes of Kojo, the crucial issue in this Mercedes traffic
centers on the U.N. and what kind of due diligence after all Kofi
Annan's promises of reform is even now being exercised by the "Hell
no"-he-won't-go secretary-general. It is quite possible that Janneh was
promoted, as Malloch Brown explained in the Sunday phone interview, solely
for his "talent and experience." But unlike, say, the U.S. confirmation
process, the U.N.'s deliberations over staff promotions are not matters of
public record. And one sorry result of Kofi Annan's apparent inattention
to everything from massive corruption under Oil-for-Food, to crooked
dealings in the procurement department, to the alleged misuse of U.N.
privileges by his own son, is that there is by now no reason to trust the
U.N. without verifying. At the very least, the tale of the Mercedes and
the timing of Janneh's promotion highlight the need for a lot more
disclosure in the process by which the secretary-general doles out the
U.N.'s top jobs.
Claudia Rosett is a journalist in residence at the Foundation for the
Defense of Democracies.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/rosett/rosett200511140905.asp
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