Annan drops plan to use prize to launch foundation

United Nations, May 9 : Secretary-General Kofi Annan, apparently bowing to critics, has dropped plans to use a 500,000 dollars prize to set up a foundation he would run after he leaves the United Nations, the United Nations said.

Annan will instead donate the proceeds of the Zayed International Prize for the Environment to humanitarian relief in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, chief U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said yesterday.

The proposed foundation had raised fresh questions of a possible conflict of interest for Annan, whose stewardship of the United Nations has been under a microscope for the past two years over alleged improprieties in its procurement department and the now-defunct UN oil-for-food program for Iraq.

Annan came into the 500,000 dollars when the United Arab Emirates awarded him the Zayed prize in December.

The UN leader said he would use it as seed money for a foundation he would head after he steps down at the end of 2006. Annan, who is from Ghana, said the foundation would be used to promote agriculture and girls' education in Africa.

Then, three months later, Annan named Achim Steiner, a judge on the panel giving him the award, to head the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Program, raising questions about whether the prize and the appointment were linked.

Other critics questioned whether Annan had won the prize as secretary-general rather than as an individual and would therefore not have the right to control the money.

''Perhaps it's perfectly innocent, but the ethics standards applied to senior U.N. officials are not the equivalent of those that senior American officials face,'' John Bolton, the US ambassador to the United Nations, told Fox News. ''So judging by that standard I think it's worth looking into further.'' Annan and his spokesman had denied impropriety, insisting that Steiner had been the best qualified for the UN appointment and Annan had the right to control the prize money and set up his foundation before leaving the world body.

Annan has previously donated prize money to U.N. and other charitable causes. He contributed his 481,265 dollars-share of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize to a U.N. memorial fund benefiting the children of UN staff killed in the line of duty and a 100,000 dollars Philadelphia Liberty Medal Prize to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Dujarric declined to say whether the criticism had driven Annan to change his mind on the 500,000 dollars.

The great need for relief funding in Darfur was ''something he has been thinking about recently,'' Dujarric said, adding that he hoped the gift would encourage others to contribute.

Reuters