WASHINGTON – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday fired the first U.N. staff member in the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, charging he engaged in “serious misconduct.”
Joseph Stephanides, a U.N. bureaucrat from Cyprus, was officially notified he was being canned in the wake of allegations that he improperly steered a lucrative contract to a British firm for political reasons.
Stephanides was “summarily dismissed for serious misconduct in accordance with the U.N. staff regulations,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Stephanides is one of a handful of officials whom the investigative panel headed by Paul Volcker has accused of shady dealings in the $64 billion humanitarian program.
The Volcker commission charged Stephanides, head of the U.N. Security Council Affairs Division, with “tainting” the U.N. bidding process by advising the British inspection company Lloyd’s Register on how much to lower its bid to win an oil-for-food contract in 1996.
The company won the inspection contract even though there was a French firm that initially submitted a lower bid.
Stephanides was accused of working with officials of the British U.N. Mission to make sure Lloyd’s got the contract, the Volcker commission reported.
Stephanides, 59, who was planning on retiring in September, said he would appeal his dismissal.
“I look to the appeal process in the confident hope that justice will be made and I will be exonerated, because I have committed no wrongdoing,” Stephanides told The Associated Press.
Two other U.N. officials – Annan’s former chief-of-staff, Iqbal Riza, and ex-U.N. watchdog agency head Dileep Nair – were allowed to retire after accusations against them surfaced.
And U.N. disciplinary action is “on hold” for now against Benon Sevan, the oil-for-food program administrator, pending the final outcome of the Volcker commission’s investigation, Dujarric told The Post.
The firing comes at a time when Annan is working furiously to repair his image in the wake of the oil fiasco and other major scandals that have rocked the United Nations.