Fed: Former AWB manager blows whistle on kickbacks

AAP General News (Australia)
02-02-2006
Fed: Former AWB manager blows whistle on kickbacks

SYDNEY, Feb 2 - A former AWB manager has blown the whistle on the wheat exporter's
payment of kickbacks to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime, telling an inquiry that
senior executives agreed to the system and knew it could be illegal.

Mark Emons, the former manager of the company's Middle East Section, has begun giving
evidence to the Commission of Inquiry examining $300 million in kickbacks paid by AWB
to Iraq under the United Nations oil-for-food program.

Mr Emons, who was interviewed by commission investigators in secret a week before Christmas,
has told the inquiry he helped set up the system that funnelled money to Saddam's regime.

Mr Emons said the payments were first raised by Iraq during a meeting he had with Iraqi
Grain Board director general Zuhair Daoud in 1998, and were first imposed the following
year at the rate of $US12 per tonne of wheat.

"There was no negotiation, it was a figure given to us," he told the inquiry.

Zuhair also told him the fee had been approved by the United Nations.

"At this time I recall that there was much discussion between employees of AWB Limited
(in addition to the emails) about the new provision that Zuhair had insisted be inserted,"

Mr Emons said in a written statement to the commission.

"It was common knowledge that Iraq was imposing a fee."

The issue was widely discussed within the company, Mr Emons said.

"We were uncertain about any legality about this matter. However the issue of the process
was approved," he told the inquiry.

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KEYWORD: AWB EMONS

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