NEW YORK, March 29 (Xinhuanet) -- Kojo Annan, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, intentionally concealed the true nature of continuing relationship with his employer, an interim report said Tuesday.

    The report, which is the second interim report prepared by a committee headed by Paul Volcker, the former US Federal Reserve chairman, said Kojo actively participated in efforts by Cotecna to conceal the true nature of their continuing relationship after the media disclosed his relationship with the company in January, 1999.

    Kojo, now 31, worked for the Swiss firm Cotecna in West Africa from 1995 to December 1997, and then as a consultant until the end of 1998 when the oil-for-food contract was awarded.

    According to Cotecna, Kojo got more than 365,000 dollars from the company with 200,000 dollars as a full-time employee and more than 165,000 from 1999 to February 2004 under the so-called "non-compete" contract.

    The report said that Kojo Annan was not forthcoming with either his father or the committee and accused him of consistently trying to hide the nature of his relationship with Cotecna.

    He intentionally deceived his father about this "continuing financial relationship," the report noted, adding that he also failed to cooperate fully with the committee's requests for financial disclosure, and refused to answer questions about his financial interests stemming from the redacted records that he belatedly disclosed to the committee.

    Significant questions remain about Kojo's actions during the fall of 1998 as well as the integrity of his business and financial dealings with respect to the oil-for-food program, the report said, stressing that "the committee's investigation of these matters is continuing."

    Meanwhile, the committee concluded that Cotecna has made false statements to the public, the United Nations, and the committee by asserting that Kojo had resigned his consultancy on Oct. 9, 1998.

    In addition, Cotecna disguised its continuing relationship with Kojo by routing the payments that were made to him, made pursuant to a non-compete agreement from March 1999 to February 2004 through other companies.

    The first interim report, issued on Feb. 3, said that the program's procurement process was "tainted" and its former director Benon Sevan violated rules in selecting purchasers of Iraqi oil.

    The oil-for-food program was the largest UN humanitarian aid operation, running from 1996 to 2003, which allowed the then Iraqi government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods as an exemption from UN sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Enditem