Give details of wheat payoffs: CBI to Australia

As reported by The Indian Express, an Australian investigation into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme came up with documentary evidence to show that $2.5 million (Rs 11.25 crore) was paid in the 1998 Indian wheat deal.

The pay-offs, according to documents submitted by the Australian Wheat Board (AWB) to a probe being headed by Commissioner Terence Cole, alleged that the $2.5 million were paid into an unknown bank account in the Cayman Islands as part of an order for export of 2 million tonnes of wheat in February 1998.

The documents submitted to Cole include internal reports of AWB’s CEO which said that AWB’s searches ‘‘uncovered documents’’ on the pay-offs dispatched to Cayman Islands but the Commission Agreement had not been located, ‘‘although there was a suggestion that such a document did exist.’’

It is to be recalled that CBI closed the case in 2004 for alleged lack of documentary support, a contention the Australian Attorney General’s office has strongly denied in its Parliament and in correspondence with the media, including The Indian Express.