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At UN, Leaks Show Budget Process Is Broken, Germany Claims $41 Million for Lebanon Ships

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 15 -- The UN's budget process is broken, the Secretariat and the General Assembly both pass the buck, and no one seems to be willing to talk about it. Halfway through the month in which the Budget Committee must vote on $7.5 billion of peacekeeping missions, many of the proposals and reports are not available. Who or what is to blame?

            On Thursday Inner City Press asked the spokespeople for the Secretary-General and the President of the General Assembly about letters Inner City Press obtained between the chairman of the Budget Committee and the Under Secretary General for General Assembly and Conference Manhattan, DGACM. In the first, Chairman Hamidon Ali, permanent representative of Malaysia, complains to outgoing Management chief Alicia Barcena about the slow-down, rejecting all arguments for why the Secretariat and the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) do not make documents available. The response, not by Ms. Barcena but rather Shaban Shaban of DGACM, shifts the blame to ACABQ and to the department of peacekeeping. But is that any proposal to improve all this?

  Inner City Press asked the spokesperson for Ban Ki-moon, who came in promising reform,

"I don't want to call it a rebellion -- but people are saying, how can all this money being asked for of the Fifth Committee, with documents that have not even been turned in yet for the peacekeeping missions.  Is there, one, why are they being turned in late, and what is the plan to try to make things work better?"

Spokesperson:  I don't have an answer for you, but what I can do is ask people responsible for the budget to come and explain the process to you, and how this happened, but as you know, the process is being discussed right now in the Fifth Committee.  And we usually do not -- we can give you background information on how the budget is dealt with, but specifics are of course right now in discussions in the Fifth Committee, so we would not get involved.

Inner City Press:  I was just surprised because the Chairman of the Fifth Committee wrote to Alicia Barcena saying what's going on, and the response he got is from the DGACM.  So, I'm trying to understand who is really responsible for providing these budget proposals to the Budget Committee?

Spokesperson:  I would put your question to the Controller's office.

            But there are no answers.

German UNIFIL peacekeeper: show me the money ($41 million, see below)

   Nor from the Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly:

"There's this letter dated 22 April from the head of the Fifth Committee, the Ambassador of Malaysia, to a slew of Secretariat officials complaining about, I guess the treatment of the GA.  But I wanted to know -- the President of the GA is not cc-ed.  Is he in the loop, is he aware of the letter, does he support [the Chairman of the Fifth Committee]?

Spokesperson:  The President is aware of the letter, but the letter is not addressed to the President.  And, let me again refer to something that you and I discussed last week when this issue came up.  You asked about the lateness of reports, etc. and the involvement of the President, and I did mention to you that, as has been traditional, the President, once he's back, he will most likely meet with the Chair of the Fifth Committee to discuss how discussions are going on, including on this issue of lateness of reports and all the other issues.  So the President is aware of what is going on.

Inner City Press:  Just a question to you, whether ACABQ, is there some requirement that the members actually attend meetings, if a certain amount of time goes by without a member actually appearing to do the work, what happens?

Spokesperson:  I cannot answer for anything that relates to the work of ACABQ.

            The allegation is that the vice chair of ACABQ has not attended in several months, and the Belgian member for weeks. And so it goes at the UN.

Footnote: from a document picked up in the Budget Committee, Inner City Press asked, "on a handout about amounts owed to governments, under letters of assist, it says that Germany is owed $44.7 million. Can you say what this is for, and, if it is for naval for UNIFIL, how much Germany has been paid, beyond what's still owed to it?"

  Three days later, UN Peacekeeping replied: "Germany has Letter of Assist (LOA) claims totaling $44,666,419 of which $$40,790,696 is for Germany's contribution of naval vessels to UNIFIL.   The remaining LOA claim of $3,875,723 is for LOA claim certified and in Accounts Payable for UNTAC (Cambodia)."

  And now you know...

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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