The Canadian Wheat Board says it played no direct role in uncovering questionable dealings between the Australian Wheat Board and the government of Iraq under the United Nations oil-for-food program.
A UN report on the program revealed that hundreds of millions of dollars paid by AWB to a Jordanian transport company to truck wheat from seaport to Iraq instead went directly to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Both the CWB and Canadian government were mentioned in connection with the case at government hearings into the matter in Australia last week, according to press reports.
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An official with Australia’s department of foreign affairs and trade reportedly testified that the government of Canada had made allegations that the supposed transport payments were in fact being directed to the Iraqi government.
It was also reported that a UN official had previously told Australian diplomats that Iraq was demanding $700,000 US from the CWB to cover similar transport costs for any wheat shipped into Iraq.
CWB spokesperson Deanna Allen said the wheat board never received any such demands from Iraq for the simple reason that it wasn’t selling wheat to that country.
“For demands to have existed for us to pay money to cover costs doesn’t float because we didn’t have any direct business into Iraq during those years,” she said.
The board has made no direct sales of wheat to Iraq in more than 10 years. Accredited exporters did make sales totalling 572,000 tonnes in the period 1999-2001.
Allen added that the board never made any formal complaint to the Canadian government or any other organization or agency about AWB’s sales to Iraq.
Board officials did notice the high volumes of Aussie wheat moving into Iraq during that period and raised the matter during normal consultations with Ottawa on wheat trade issues.
“We did have conversations with the Canadian government about what we saw in terms of trading activity in that area,” she said, adding the board was mainly curious as to whether Canadian government regulations related to the trade embargo were more strict than for other countries.
Allen said she had no idea whether Canadian government officials passed on those concerns to the Australian government.
An official with the Canadian department of foreign affairs and international trade was unable to confirm or deny whether the Canadian government ever raised the issue of the AWB payments with the Australian government.
