The UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan, said on Monday he had not known that his son had continued receiving payments until February of this year from a Swiss inspection company being investigated for alleged fraud and abuses in the oil-for-food program in Iraq.Speaking on Monday morning to reporters, Annan denied any wrongdoing or even knowledge of the fact that Cotecna Inspection Services had paid his son, Kojo, $2,500 a month for four years after the company and the United Nations said their relationship had ended.Annan said that although he and his son had discussed his son’s relationship with Cotecna, a Geneva-based company that was a major UN contractor, he was ‘‘disappointed’’ that he had apparently not been told the full story.‘‘Naturally, I was very disappointed and surprised, yes,’’ Annan said when asked by reporters at the United Nations whether he had discussed the payments with his son after they were initially disclosed Friday in The New York Sun.Annan added that the payments had created a ‘‘perception problem’’ for the United Nations, which has been accused of mismanaging the $64 billion oil-for-food program. It was aimed at permitting Iraq under Saddam Hussein to sell oil so it could import goods to offset the debilitating effects of sanctions on the Iraqi people.He also said that the scandals surrounding the program, which was in effect from 1996 until the US invasion in 2003, would complicate the world body’s ability to pursue his ambitious international agenda.‘‘Obviously in this climate and with this oil-for-food discussions, it is not going to be easy,’’ Annan said.The revelation about the continuing Cotecna payments to Annan’s son comes at a time of strained relations between Annan and the US. Leaders of House and Senate committees investigating abuses in the oil-for-food program have accused Annan of hiding behind the independent commission he established, under pressure to investigate the program, to avoid providing them with access to UN staff and documents they have requested.
