KUWAIT CITY, March 20: The United States on Saturday announced the impounding of Iraq's oil-for-food programme records so as to assist a UN fraud enquiry.

Announcing the decision, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in Kuwait that the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Iraq's Interim Governing Council (IGC) had "frozen" documents related to the UN oil-for-food programme to assist a fraud enquiry launched by the world body.

"(Coalition civil administrator) ambassador (Paul) Bremer and the Iraqi Governing Council have frozen all the records that exist in Baghdad with respect to the oil-for-food programme," he said.

"The records will be available for UN investigators," whenever they ask for them, Mr Powell added.

He said the United States was working with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to assist in the enquiry into allegations of fraud and corruption in the UN programme that oversaw Iraqi oil sales following the 1991 invasion.

"We are concerned about it ... The secretary general plans to expand the scope of that enquiry with outside auditors and investigators.

"We are working with the secretary general to provide all the assistance we can and give the advice as to how we can expand the scope of it."-AFP