NEW DELHI, Nov 15: Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi pledged on Tuesday the Indian government would take action against anyone found to be involved in making money out of the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.
The cabinet set up an inquiry last week into allegations in a UN report that former foreign minister Natwar Singh and the Congress benefited illegally from the programme.
“If they are not innocent then action will be taken,” Gandhi told a conference in New Delhi. “It made me extremely angry.”
Singh resigned over the allegations in the report by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.
India’s former chief judge R. S. Pathak will inquire into the naming of Singh as a beneficiary of four million barrels of Iraqi oil.
The Congress party, which heads the coalition government, was also listed as a beneficiary of a separate allotment of four million barrels.
“If these documents are authentic,” Gandhi warned “... I shall clearly not protect” the guilty.
Sonia Gandhi, who also heads the ruling United Programme Alliance coalition, called for high ethical standards from India’s political parties.—AFP
