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Scandal-hit AWB's former money man vows to fight charges
AFP
SYDNEY
Petroleumworld.com 11 28 06The former financial boss of Australia's monopoly wheat exporter vowed Tuesday to fight any criminal charges arising from a damning report alleging he approved hefty bribes to Saddam Hussein.
Paul Ingleby, AWB's chief financial officer from 1998 until he resigned recently, is the first of 11 AWB executives recommended for criminal charges by a report closing an official inquiry into the kickbacks scandal to speak out.
The report released Monday recommended that 12 people be considered for charges but cleared Australia's government of culpability in AWB's funnelling of 220 million dollars to Iraq's former regime in return for wheat contracts.
"I reject the findings and will fight any charges laid against me," Ingleby said in a statement, after the results of the 10-month inquiry concluded that AWB deceived the United Nations and the Canberra government over its flouting of UN sanctions.
"I have insisted throughout the inquiry that I was not involved in the matters (which were) the subject of the inquiry, and I maintain that I have not committed any offence against any Australian or international law."
In his final report to parliament, the head of the probe, Terence Cole, fingered Ingleby for his role in disguising bribes intended to secure wheat contracts as trucking fees paid to a Jordanian transport firm.
"By approving the process or mechanism for payment by AWB of fees to an Iraqi entity through third parties, Ingleby facilitated the making of those payments," Cole said.
"There was no legitimate commercial reason to hide payments through the use of shipowners or Ronly.
Cole recommended both a special high-level taskforce and the corporate watchdog investigate Ingleby, who could face fines of up to 220,000 dollars or five years prison, or both.
Ingleby's denial came as AWB's former chief executive Andrew Lindberg, who resigned in February but was cleared by the report, defended the company's former executives, saying they had never set out to do anything wrong.
"Mistakes were made, misjudgements were made, but I don't believe that they did it with any evil intent," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The day after the findings were tabled in parliament, the government vowed it would fast-track laws giving a new taskforce access to documents that would open the way for charges to be laid against the 111 AWB staff and a former executive of mining giant BHP Billiton.
BHP Billiton chief executive Chip Goodyear vowed to thoroughly investigate any involvement in a debt recovery deal with AWB linked to Iraq after Cole called for a special taskforce to investigate former BHP boss Norman Davidson Kelly.
Davidson Kelly headed up BHP-related company, Tigris Petroleum, which played a major role in a debt recovery plan involving Saddam's regime and the AWB, according to the report.
"You have to take ownership of the process that deals with the issues properly no matter where they are," Goodyear said.
The government is expected to announce an overhaul of AWB's 67-year-old wheat export monopoly as early as next week amid calls for changes.
AFP 28 0639 GMT 11 06
Copyright© 2001 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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