United Nations: United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan castigated the press for carrying 'unfair' and 'unconfirmed' reports circulated by people with 'agendas' about his and his son's role in the Volcker controversy.
Kofi Annan was addressing a press conference on Wednesday to discuss the events of 2005.
One of the biggest controversies in 2005 was the report delivered by Paul Volcker on the Oil-for-Food Programme. The report blamed Annan for mismanagement of the programme.
What provoked his ire was a remark by James Bone of Time of London that "Your version of events don't really make sense."
Bone asked, "The Volcker Committee report says that the Mercedes was bought in your name, so as the owner of the car, can you tell us what happened to it and where it is now? Now, my question is that, it's true that we missed a lot of stories in the oil-for-food scandal, and the UN hasn't made it easy. And even your answer today on the Mercedes so far hasn't made it easy. Some of your own stories, your own version of events, don't really make sense. I'd like to ask you particularly"?
Replying to his question, Annan said, "I think you're being very cheeky. Listen James Bone, you've been behaving like an overgrown schoolboy in this room for many, many months and years. You are an embarrassment to your colleagues and to your profession. Please stop misbehaving and please let's move on to a serious subject".
"When I said it was a difficult year, I wasn't externalising. It was both a difficult year for the world, and for me and the organisation. You did mention the Volcker report; we have all looked at the report and have drawn the right lessons from it, and are trying to take steps to correct the situation," said Annan.
"I hope you, ladies and gentleman of the press, will do some reflection of your own as to how you covered that event, how you allowed deliberate leaks and others to lead you in one direction and when in the end, the actual story came, and all the full investigations were completed, where the documentation on the companies and the countries, you missed the story," Annan added.
Speaking on the Iraq issue, Annan said that he would have liked everything done to avoid the war.
It was evident that the Secretary General was angry with the media for their mishandling of the Volcker scandal and that he had no intentions of hiding it.
2006 will be Annan's last year as the UN Secretary-General. This was his second term in office.
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