Australian Wheat Board Shocker – funded Saddam and ripped off UN’s World Food Program. Posted on January 25, 2006 The Howard Government agreed to pay more than $83 million for two shiploads of Australian wheat on their way to Iraq when war broke out in 2003, apparently unaware the contract price had been inflated to cover kickbacks to Saddam Hussein’s regime. AWB, Australia’s monopoly wheat exporter, convinced the federal Government to pay, through its AusAID agency, an inflated price for the wheat stranded in the Persian Gulf at the beginning of the war. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, who was unavailable for comment last night, said at the time AusAID would deliver the wheat to Iraqis as part of a post-war humanitarian program. The price included $38 million for the wheat, and $45 million in “handling and distribution costs”. The cost of the wheat was ultimately picked up by the UN’s World Food Program, which feeds people in crisis. Its officials were also unaware the price was inflated. The revelation that AWB was prepared to defraud the taxpayer and an international aid program may be the final straw for the Howard Government, which has previously defended AWB as it battles to save its reputation. The Cole inquiry in Sydney is investigating allegations AWB paid $290 million in illegal kickbacks to Saddam to secure wheat contracts worth billions of dollars under the UN’s oil-for-food program before the Iraq war. AWB has insisted it thought the payments were for transport costs, although a senior executive yesterday admitted at the inquiry that the company knew it was breaching UN sanctions by inflating the price of wheat. SO WHAT IS HAPPENING LITTLE JOHNNY YOUR TIME IS COMING BUDDY...................
Posted on: Tue, 19 Aug 2014 09:04:56 +0000
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