The United States once again became the largest member state of the United Nations (UN) that has yet to pay their regular budget assessments, a UN regular budget statement shows, disclosing the international organization is undergoing tight expenditure controls.
The statement was released by the UN at the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly at the 75th session of the United Nations, during which member states showed concern over the UN's financial situation and called for timely payment for the UN's regular budget assessments.
The report warned that the 75-year-old organization is undergoing a cash crisis as the deficit reached $106 million. Among the 69 member states with unpaid budget assessments, the U.S. remains the largest overdue member state.
According to the report, as of September 30, the U.S. accounts for 73 percent or $1.09 billion and 54.3 percent or $1.38 billion of the unpaid assessment in both regular budget and peacekeeping operations assessments respectively.
Sound financial situation is the guarantee for the UN to fulfill its mandates and to implement program activities. Without enough financial support, many UN operations would be forced to postpone.
Speaking of the dire financial situation of the UN, Dai Bing, deputy representative of China to the UN Ambassador attributed the cash crisis to the U.S. withholding its assessed contributions despite of its full capacity to pay.
Dai accused the U.S. of leveraging the money to serve its political agenda while ignoring its financial obligation to the UN and the repeated calls made by the UN Secretary-General.
"China expresses its serious concern in this regard," said the ambassador, who stressed that China, as the second largest financial contributor to UN assessed budgets and a responsible developing country, has fully paid its assessed contributions this year.
"We call upon all member states, in particular those with the capacity to pay, to pay their assessed contributions in full, on time, and without conditions," the ambassador appealed.