Fri. Mar 29th, 2024

The United Nations chief Antonio Guterres has on Friday warned the UN member states that it owes approximately $2 billion in the peacekeeping funds as well as the United States is too responsible for more than a third of that.

In a letter to the 193 UN member states, Guterres, on January 11, wrote, “Active peacekeeping missions are soon expected to face liquidity gaps due to late payments and increasing arrears.” He added, “Arrears are nearing $2 billion and are likely to keep growing.”

According to Reuters news reports, Guterres also said while 152 members of the UN states had paid in the full length, which they owed for another separate UN regular budget in 2018, a record, more than of $528 million was still outstanding.

The US is responsible and owes 22 percent of the $5.4 billion in the regular budget for 2018 and 2019, and above 28 percent of the $6.7 billion peacekeeping fund for the year to June 30.

A UN official said the US owed around $381 million to the regular budget as of January 1 and approx. $776 million to the peacekeeping budget.

The US President Donald Trump said Washington was has been shouldering an unfair burden of the fund of the UNs and has pushed the world body to reform operations.

The UN general assembly, in December, agreed what percentage of the regular and peacekeeping budgets each country would have to pay for the next three years.

The US envoy for UN management and reform Cherith Norman Chalet told the UN budget committee on December 22: “The lack of agreement on a 25 percent ceiling will cause the organization to continue to face a three percent shortfall in its peacekeeping budget.”

In his letter, Guterres said, “Current cash balances cover less than two months of operations, compared to four months last year.” Last year he has written twice the time to warn states about the “troubling financial situation”.

 

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