Friday, December 23 2005 12:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: The UN has extended the term of the Volcker Committee, probing corruption in the oil-for-food scandal, until end of March next year to enable law enforcement authorities to follow up legal action against beneficiaries of the pay-offs in the programme under Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

However, hundreds of thousands of pages of evidence and documents collected by the committee during its 18-month investigation would be available indefinitely to Member States who want to launch investigations as, under an agreement with the world body, they would be transferred to the UN when the its renewed term expires on March 31.

Officials said the Committee and UN are still negotiating on the release of documents as the Committee had received them from several governments and sources, including Iraq, with some of whom it has signed confidentiality agreements.

From January 1, the Committee will have no investigator authority as it has completed its work and will be headed by a new Executive Director.

Former head of the American Federal Reserve Paul Volcker, who headed the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC), and other commissioners, would serve on it on 'strictly advisory capacity'. a UN spokesman said. It will be called the Office of the IIC and will be headed by Canadian Reid Mordan, executive director of the Committee.

Volcker's last report in October accused more than 2,200 companies from about 40 countries of colluding with Saddam Hussein's regime to bilk the oil-for-food programme in Iraq of USD 1.8 billion.

US Ambassador to UN John Bolton had urged Secretary General Kofi Annan last month to take immediate steps to prevent the documents from going to the shredders around the world.

UN officials expressed disappointment that less than a dozen countries, including India, the US, Britain, France and Germany, have sought documents and information from it. Others include Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and Italy. But Russia is among the states, which have not acted so far even though a large number of Russian companies are mentioned in the report.

India has launched investigations into the findings that former External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and the Congress party were among the 'non contractual' beneficiaries of the programme and its 129 companies had paid bribes to the Saddam Hussein regime to get business under the programme.

Indian government's special envoy Virendra Dayal had visited New York in the third week of November and had been able to get some key documents he was seeking for the investigations into the findings.

After receiving its final report on October 27, Annan had urged the Member States to take action against illegal practices by the companies under their jurisdiction.

At the same time he had reiterated his commitment to 'vital' reform of the UN management structure in response to criticism in earlier IIC reports, which found lack of oversight allowed the corruption to creep in the programme.