The United Nations is making available to US congressional investigators the chief auditor of its oil-for-food program for Iraq to provide information about the multi-billion dollar humanitarian operation, a UN spokesman said on Wednesday.

In a letter to US Senators Norm Coleman and Carl Levin on Monday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, said that Dagfinn Knutsen would be available to brief them and their colleagues from the other investigative committees.

"As the lead auditor of all of the OIOS (UN internal watchdog) audits into the oil-for-food program, no one is better placed to answer whatever questions Congress members may have on this particular issue of audits," UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters in New York.

He recalled that last week in Washington, Malloch Brown told US lawmakers that the UN would work with Congress to ensure an orderly process that meets the needs of all the congressional committees and those of the Independent Inquiry Committee (IIC) commissioned by Annan and chaired by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

Coleman is chairman of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is holding hearings on the oil-for-food program. Levin is its ranking minority member.

Some US congressmen, including Coleman and Levin have repeatedly called on the United Nations to allow its officials to testify on the Iraqi project, which was plagued by allegations of corruption and fraud.

Citing immunity UN officials enjoy, Brown said in his letter that Knusten will only do background briefing before Coleman's subcommittee, instead of testifying.

"While immunity may be waived in certain specified circumstances, as a matter of policy, the organization does not waive such immunity in relation to testimony under oath before national legislative bodies such as your subcommittee," Brown explained.

"To do so would involve the organization's officials in providing testimony under oath to legislators in more than 190 member states," he added.

The oil-for-food program, which started in December 1996, allowed Iraq to export oil worth some US$67 billion. The United Nations oversaw Iraq's oil sales and its purchase of humanitarian supplies. The program was shut down in November 2003.

The corruption rumors surfaced in January 2004 when an Iraqi newspaper published a list of about 270 prominent figures from more than 46 countries, saying they received oil money from Saddam Hussein's regime. The list allegedly includes Benon Sevan, former chief of the program. Saddam is said to have skimmed billions of dollars from the program by taking advantage of its mismanagement.

A preliminary report released by Volcker early this month said Sevan solicited and gained millions of barrels of Iraqi oil allocations for a Geneva-based company, but did not mention whether he benefited from that. The charge has been strongly denied by Sevan.

(Xinhua News Agency February 17, 2005)