The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool has emerged as one of the companies involved in Iraq oil- for-food deals now under investigation by a U.S. congressional committee probing the United Nations aid program, which Saddam Hussein manipulated to skim off billions of dollars for himself.The focus on the company comes as the UN announced Friday it had discovered a staff-rule violation by Canadian businessperson and international diplomat Maurice Strong, whose long record at the world body is being reviewed after he, too, was recently swept up in the swirl of oil-for-food allegations and inquiries.
Six U.S. congressional committees and the UN itself are investigating the $50.92-billion program following allegations of mismanagement and corruption that helped Saddam siphon off funds through kickbacks and other forms of manipulation. A U.S. federal investigation is also underway in New York, and has already issued several indictments.
[...]The congressional hearing in which the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool was mentioned Thursday saw BNP Paribas, the bank the UN used to broker deals in the oil-for-food program, acknowledge it improperly made 403 payments to third parties or their banks rather than to companies approved by the UN to deliver goods for Iraq.
Four of those payments are listed as going to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool from 1999- 2000, total value $23.15 million, and another two went to a Canadian-registered company called Limpex Trading in 2001, total value $124.1 million.
No allegation of corruption has surfaced, but congressional officials want to know more about the payments.
Officials of the Pool, Saskatchewan's largest grain handler and marketer, say that "as an accredited exporter for the Canadian Wheat Board," the Pool sent wheat to Iraq at that time.
They explain five vessels carried the shipments under the oil-for-food program, which the UN launched in late 1996 as a way to provide food and medicine to ordinary Iraqis as it pressed sanctions against the Saddam regime over weapons inspections.
"We received all the required verified approvals, and I have no reason to question the documentation wasn't valid," Mayo Schmidt, chief executive officer of the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, said Friday in an interview.
"We disclosed in our annual report of 2000 that there were shipments to Iraq. In fact, we ended up suffering an $8.7-million loss because portions of the CWB wheat were rejected, and there were costs related to unloading delays and the transfer of the wheat to alternative buyers."
All those folks who bailed on their SWP shares 10 days ago will be feeling pretty lucky, I think.
Background links
uswheat.org: " Saddam Hussein forbade any purchases of U.S. wheat in 1998, others had a virtual lock on the closed market, working through the Oil for Food Program"
From an article on the investigation into involvement by the Australian Wheat Board - "everyone who participated in this program benefited. You were not a player unless you were giving something to Saddam."
I was just taking a silly, wild-assed guess that there would be a Limpex Trading in la Belle Province.
Guess what?
One of those cell-phone picture phone thingies would be so handy right now. Wonder who owns the business at this address?
671, rue Gertrude,
Fabreville, QC H7P 3A4
Tel. : 450-625-2222
Category : Exporters
Directory : Laval
Hmmmm.... maybe those planes last week were here for different reasons..... nah.... couldn't be...
Found Limpex in a cached page containing this text:
Sell ::: BITUMEN TO SELL 19900
BITUMEN TO SELL
Country: Iran
Sub category: Bitumen
Company Name: LIMPEX
Contact person: Davood Abbasi
Offer detail:
WE ARE IN THE POSITION TO PROVIDE THE BEST QUALITY OF IRAN NIOC BITUMEN IN ANY GRADES AND ANY QUANTITY IN BULK, NEW STEEL DRUMS, AND POLY BAGS WITH THE BEST AVAILABLE MARKET RATES IN SHORTEST TIME.
my mail: daabbasi@ aol. com & limpexco@ hotmail. com
TEL: + 98 21 8899491/ 3
FAX: + 98 21 8892825
Phone: 0098 21 8899491
Fax: 0098 21 8892825
The above used to be at http://trade-leads.20un.com
Some more references
產品類別：運動休閒用品
產品名稱：Sporting Goods
產品描述：*Sporting Goods, Exercise Equipment.
商機代碼：TO021025143501675
公司名稱：LIMPEX TRADING INC.
聯絡人：Nabil Albanna
電話：1-450-625-2222
傳真：1-450-625-8938
EMAIL：limpex@total.net.
地址：671, rue Gertrude Laval, Quebec, Canada H7P 3A4
國家：Canada
Nabil Albanna leads us to this tantalizing goodie.
Oil spare parts. With affiliates in Canada, Iraq, Russia no less.
This Wheat Pool has only been publicly traded for about a month. Who was behind it going public? More importantly, who made money on it going public? Interesting that the link to SWP came out in the testimony of a BNP Paribas representative.
"REGINA, SASKATCHEWAN--(CCNMatthews - March 24, 2005) - Saskatchewan
Wheat Pool (TSX:SWP.NV.B) today announced that the Certificate and
Articles of Continuance have been issued by the Director General of
Corporations Canada with an effective date of March 31, 2005. On March
31, the Pool will have completed its recapitalization and will become a
federal corporation governed by the Canada Business Corporations Act.
"On March 28, 2005, the Pool's new common shares will commence trading on
the Toronto Stock Exchange on a "when issued" basis under the stock
symbol SWP. Regular trading will commence on March 31, 2005."
Davood Abbasi
Five vessels carried the wheat?
Vessels, sea-going vessels?
Curious & curiouser.
How does one certify ownership/registration/home port/flg of convenience, & etc., of these five (5) vessels?
Were they out of Vancouver, Prince Rupert, Montreal, Halifax, New York, San Francisco?
Oh, BTW, Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) is registered/flagged where? Barbados? These assets are in Payola Martin's "blind" "trust" me with your tax money, suckers. Does CSL operate sea-going vessels?
Payola Martin pays no tax to Canada on those assets.
Captain Payola Martin. Resign. Now.
The Letra site mentions UN programs in the fields of Water Treatment (reverse osmosis) and Oil.
Water treatment
Everybody else raked off millions and SWP lost money. Typical.
Pierre Pedicure gives a thank you to a member of the board of a Canadian water treatment company that also served on Canada-Arab Business Council.
OT but I was just wondering.
I thought patriot Warren was going to bring the reporters over here to embarass the bloggers. Wonder where he went?
He never did explain how it is that he is so sure Chretien did not know about Adscam.
Limpex has HOTMAIL accounts??????
Yeah, Warren sort of sputtered away on that one.
Aha! I knew it! It's the Bagdad-Paris-Sakatoon connection!
SWP annual meeting postponed until when?
continue to get connection refused to www.sedar.com
Look out below Sask Wheat Pool shareholders, more bad news coming may 5 from www.WesternProducer.com