The Australian Wheat Board – OFF scandal is updated in this piece by Prime Minister John Howard, appearing in today’s WSJ. (Behind subscriber wall);
The Australian government is serious about prosecuting the perpetrators of Iraq’s Oil for Food scam. In fact, my government has gone further than any other to investigate what part any company played in Saddam Hussein’s vast, illegal profiteering of public funds.
Australia’s wheat exporter AWB Ltd. figured prominently in last year’s United Nations report, prepared by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Mr. Volcker identified almost 2,400 companies from more than 60 countries that paid $1.8 billion in kickbacks to Saddam’s regime. Of those companies, the Volcker report found that AWB had funneled more than $211 million to the Iraqi government, in the form of contract kickbacks. Mr. Volcker’s remit did not extend to prosecuting those named, nor did he discuss AWB’s knowledge of any wrongdoing. But he strongly suggested that nations follow the trail.
My government responded swiftly to the Volcker report, establishing a public judicial inquiry with wide-ranging powers headed by one of Australia’s most respected legal figures, former judge Terence Cole. We empowered the inquiry to subpoena witnesses, compel the production of documents and refer possible criminal charges to the director of public prosecutions. The Cole Commission, as it is known, carries the full powers of the Australian legal system.
[…]
It should also be remembered that the overthrow of Saddam’s regime provided, for the first time, access to documents which helped reveal to a greater extent the systematic defrauding of the Oil for Food program by the former Iraqi government. If Saddam Hussein were still in power in Iraq, the depth of the Oil for Food swindle would remain hidden amongst secret documents scattered through government offices in Baghdad.
Others charge that my government limited the inquiry’s terms of reference to prevent it making a finding against a minister or myself. This too is a falsehood. Mr. Cole has the power to make findings on the government’s knowledge of the kickbacks. I have said there will be serious consequences for any minister identified as possessing that knowledge and failing to act. This includes me.
We will act on any recommendations of the inquiry, whatever it finds. But I shall not allow my government’s reputation, nor the reputations of our farmers, to be maligned. Attacks upon the latter are particularly unfair, given that our farmers’ incomes are only now beginning to recover from the effects of a long drought, one of the worst in our nation’s history.
The corruption by Saddam Hussein of the Oil for Food program was a heinous act of public graft. I am proud of my government’s ongoing commitment to meet its international obligations, by ensuring that any alleged breaches of the law by its nationals and corporations are comprehensively addressed.
Australian media reports indicate that it was well known among wheat traders that kickbacks were a cost of doing business under Saddam Hussein’s Oil-For-Food scheme. What isn’t so clear is why there is so little curiosity in that regard about the sales to Iraq by agents of the Canadian Wheat Board.
I’ll say it again – we are asked believe that a) it was “common knowledge among grains traders” that kickbacks to Saddam Hussein were a cost of doing business under the oil-for-food program, and b) Canadian grain traders were exempt.
Astute observations Kate. Our own wheat board is a highly secretive organization that is exempt from the access to information act. I believe that if it is ever opened up to the public we will find all sorts of rot. What do you think politicians would do with an outfit that moves billions of dollars around all over the world, but no one is allowed to check their books?
I have long thought the CWB is nothing but a moneypot for the Liberals–on the backs of Western farmers. Hopefully now we can get those books opened for all to see. Then we will see how squeaky clean Goodale was.
What happens when you lift a rock that has been in place for a very long time?
The roaches, centipedes and other vermin go scurrying in all directions. They even scream to put the rock back in place.
Just read the comments from the UN sympathizers and you’ll see.
No doubt we get a very partial picture here, but it seems that almost every public statement from Mr Howard and his ministers is more impressive than the one before.
Well Moe Strong and the Desmarais/Powercor alumnus in the PMO certainly knew kickback and insider deals were the order of the day for making a buck from Saddam….but there is a near total black out on the Canadian connection to laundering Saddams money in Desmarais owned banks.
BTW: Love the way Howard the duck sounds like PM dithers when he was caught making excuses for administration partners and patrons who were doing big bisiness with Saddam. Stock Day was shut doen by Liberal cat calls and fraudulent indignation when he asked questions about the Desmarais/powercor/Strong business connections to Saddam….of course these lead righ to the Chretien/Martin PMO so there was a total news black out on this…..but a quick search of hansard will confirm that similar questions were asked in our parliamnt and zip was done or reported…..says a lot about the degenerated responsiveness of our political system….even the Ozzies can get some satisfaction when government insiders are caught profiteering with despots against agreed sanctions.
How many corporations have benefitted over the years from the same type of deals with the CWB which is accountable to no one and like Canada’s spy agency cannot be investigated.
…the CWB is like wheat sheafs left in the field for too long – it loses any value and substance and eventually rots on the stem.
Now this is one outfit (as well as the CRTC) that needs to be nipped at the bud, err, nixed.
Canadian socialist institutions supporting brutal dictators and profiting handsomely from it. Hypocrisy has become a defining Canadian value thanks to our limousine liberals.
Here are some facts that support the questioning the activities of the CWB.
Under the ‘leadership’ of the CWB, the number of farmers with permit books has dropped from about 140,000 in 1996 to about 70,000 in 2005. And apparently many of those are ‘paper farmers’. Under the Mulroney PCs, the CWB exported over 20 mil Metric Tonnes of wheat 5 times in only 8 years. Under the crooked, lazy Liberals, the lazy CWB only exported 20 mil MT of wheat once since 1995. Likewise, barley exports have fallen from 6.7 mil MT in 1986 (under PCs) to only 2.5 mil MT in 2005.
The most amazing fact about these ‘working-ourselves-out-of-a-job’ CWBers is that the world population has increased from 4.6 billion in 1982 to 6.5 billion in 2006. Two billion more people in the world and the CWB is exporting less grain than it was 20 yrs ago! What is that stench I smell? ‘Maximizing returns to the farmers’, my fat foot.
And now a few misguided people want the CWB to take over marketing of canola. They do not seem to realize that under the free market of individual non-government sales, canola has increased production by about 360% since 1982 and exports by a whopping 346%. In other words, free market canola has been subsidizing the cushy political jobs at the CWB.
Why in the world would anybody want to let the bizarre CWB sell canola when they have proven that they can’t sell more grain into a 2 billion more people market?