UNITED NATIONS, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that investigators had cleared him of any personal wrongdoing in the oil-for-food program in a new report released on Tuesday.

    "As I always had hoped and firmly believed, the inquiry has cleared me of any wrongdoing," he said in a terse statement shortly after the inquiry team released the report.

    A key accusation against Annan is that he probably exerted personal influence to help the Swiss company, Cotecna, former employer of his son, gain a contract under the oil-for-food program at the end of 1998.

    "On the key issue of the award of the contract to inspect humanitarian goods entering Iraq under the oil-for-food program, the report states clearly that 'there is no evidence that the selection of Cotecna in 1998 was subject to any affirmative or improper influence of the secretary-general in the bidding or selection process," said the statement.

    Annan will give a press conference later on Tuesday to comment the findings in the report, the second interim one issued by the inquiry panel led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. Enditem