Prime Minister John Howard announced he will testify today at an inquiry into allegations that Australia's wheat exporter paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein.
John Howard will testify at the corruption inquiry
"The Cole Commission of Inquiry has requested that I appear at its hearings," Mr Howard said in a statement issued in Canberra. "As I have said previously, I am happy to do so."
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday became the second minister to appear before an independent inquiry being chaired by retired judge Terence Cole which is examining whether the Australian Wheat Board, the monopoly exporter now known as AWB, paid nearly €200 million in kickbacks to Saddam under the UN's oil-for-food programme.
Mr Howard will become the first Australian prime minister to testify at such a high-level inquiry since Labour leader Bob Hawke appeared at an inquiry into the country's intelligence agencies in 1983.
Mr Howard also submitted a sworn statement to the inquiry. It was not published, but Mr Howard will be questioned on its contents when he appears today.
Officials in Howard's centre-right government have repeatedly denied knowing that AWB — the largest supplier of humanitarian goods under the UN programme — was making the alleged payments.
AP