GENEVA, Feb 6: An inquiry into the UN's oil-for food programme in Iraq will report within a few weeks on any role played by Secretary General Kofi Annan or his son Kojo in the growing scandal, one of the investigators said on Sunday.

Kojo Annan was employed in 1999 by a Swiss-based inspection firm, Cotecna, which was contracted by the UN after a tender process to carry out verification of the limited imports allowed into Iraq under the programme.

"We will publish a separate interim report in the issue of Cotecna and Kofi/Kojo Annan, and within a few weeks, not in a few months," Mark Pieth, a member of the independent commission of inquiry, told the Swiss weekly NZZ am Sonntag.

"We are interested in whether Secretary General Annan in any way had an influence on the bidding process or just knew that Cotecna was one of the bidders," said Pieth, a Swiss law professor and corruption expert at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Amid calls from some US lawmakers for his resignation, Kofi Annan has expressed disappointment about his son in recent months but vowed to give the inquiry a free rein to get to the bottom of the scandal.

A first report by the investigative commission revealed on Thursday that the head of the UN programme, Benon Sevan, received questionable large payments of cash and allocations of Iraqi oil.

Pieth said the commission led by former US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker also wanted to delve deeper into evidence of illicit payments to UN staff.

"There are certain signs of corruption inside the UN. We will go into the reasons for them," he said.

The inquiry's first interim report into the scandal-tainted programme stopped short of saying Sevan took bribes but said his behaviour was unethical and in clear violation of UN rules.

Sevan has denied any wrongdoing.

The programme allowed Iraq to use the revenue from oil sales to buy food and humanitarian supplies under UN supervision from 1996 to 2003, while the country was targeted by sanctions.

Saddam Hussein's regime was allowed to decide who purchased the oil.

Audits of the programme have also indicated that contractors pocketed millions of dollars in surcharges as UN officials failed to properly oversee the operation.

Pieth said Swiss-based oil trading firms and the financial sector appeared to have played a "prominent" role in the affair.-AFP