United Nations ? Kojo Annan, the son of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, received at least $300,000 from a Swiss company that was awarded a contract from the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq, almost double the amount previously disclosed, two newspapers reported in today’s editions.

The London-based Financial Times and the Italian business newspaper Il Sole 24 said the payments “were arranged in ways that obscured where the money came from or whom it went to.”

The two papers, which conducted a joint investigation, also reported that the secretary-general met top executives of the company, Cotecna Inspection S.A., twice before the oil-for-food contract was awarded in December 1998 and once afterward.

Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, who is conducting an independent investigation of alleged corruption in the oil-for-food program, is scheduled to release an interim report Tuesday detailing his findings about whether Kofi Annan and Kojo Annan committed any wrongdoing.

The secretary-general, his son, and Cotecna, all deny any wrongdoing.

A spokesman for Cotecna said the company had been cooperating fully in assisting the Volcker inquiry “to clarify any and all outstanding questions concerning payment to Kojo Annan.”

Robert Massey, Cotecna’s chief executive, met with Volcker and his investigators in New York on Monday to discuss the discrepancies in the reported payments to Kojo Annan and the company’s ongoing audit to determine the correct amount, the spokesman said.

The oil-for-food program, which ran from 1996 to 2003, allowed the former Iraqi government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian goods, as an exemption from UN. sanctions imposed after Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

In a bid to curry favor and end sanctions, Saddam allegedly gave former government officials and others vouchers for Iraqi oil that could then be resold at a profit.