Budget cuts! That's something even the United Nations is staring at as the headquarters in New York is set to remain closed in the forthcoming weekends due to the ongoing cash crunch.
In tweet from its official handle, the UN wrote, “ Has your country made its contribution to this year's regular UN budget yet?”
A document attached with the tweet carries the list of the 34 member states that have paid their regular budget assessments in full within the 30-day due period and the 97 member states who have paid their share after the 30-day period.
Earlier this year, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary general, had warned that the organisation was facing a cash crunch due to a shortage of funds in its core budget.
Last week, Guterres said 64 of its 193 member nations hadn't paid their annual dues — including the United States, its largest contributor. He added that the organisation risked depleting its liquidity reserves by the end of October and defaulting on payments to staff and vendors.
Guterres also ordered for cost-saving measures like shutting down the headquarters on the weekends, canceling meetings, limiting official travel, stopping escalators, reducing heating and air conditioning, and limiting interpretation into the UN's six official languages.
UN management chief Catherine Pollard said that the organisation would need to collect at least $808 million between October and December.
In the meantime, India has voiced concerns over the UN's inability to pay up the reimbursements for peacekeeping operations.
India is one of the 35 member states that have paid its dues but the UN is yet to pay for other Troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) reimbursements.
“India, though a developing country, has not only settled all of its dues on time, but has also made part payment for future assessments, both for the regular and peacekeeping budgets. This is not easy, considering the scale of our developmental needs. It would not be remiss that our assessment rates have also been growing, an increase of 13% in the latest update,” PTI quoted India’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador K Nagaraj Naidu as saying.
Naidu said 27 TCCs, 17 from the Group of 77, including India, are still awaiting their legitimate reimbursements from the closed peacekeeping missions.
The UN owes India 38 million dollars, among the highest it has to pay to any country, for peacekeeping operations as of March 2019.
(With inputs from PTI, AP and ANI)
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