UN owes India $50 mn in dues

UN owes India $50 mn in dues
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

UNITED NATIONS, FEB 15: The United Nations owes India about $ 50 million for troops and equipment contributed by it to different peacekeeping operations.Underscoring the strain unpaid dues cause to a developing country, India's acting permanent representative to the UN Satyabrata Pal has said despite the arrears, New Delhi continues to send its troops for difficult missions.

"With the other developing countries who still contribute the bulk of peacekeepers, we do not just sustain UN missions, but subsidise them," he told security council members who authorise missions.

Addressing the special committee on peacekeeping operations, Pal said on Monday the United Nations seems to believe that developing countries should be able to provide troops whenever needed but wait for payment forever. "This really cannot go on," he said.

India, at present, is the largest contributor to UN's peacekeeping operations with 1,745 soldiers, 226 policemen and 27 observers serving with various missions around the world.

Overthe years, more than 50,000 Indians have served on 31 peacekeeping missions in all the continents underlining the country's commitment to world peace, the Indian representative exhorted. The primary reason for delay in reimbursements to troop contributing countries, Pal said, is withholding of assessed contributions by member states.

"We hope those who have defaulted in the past will, as they must under the charter, pay their assessed contributions in full, on time and without any condition and clear up their arrears," he said.

"If they do not, the backlog of payments for the larger missions now being set up, compounded by accrued arrears, will bring us rapidly to a crisis," Pal warned.

He also expressed the fear the UN might borrow from peacekeeping operations to finance regular budget activity to meet the shortfall created by delay in payment of dues.

"This cross borrowing has delayed not just reimbursements but even current payments and is completely unacceptable to troop contributors," the Indianrepresentative said.

The United States is a major defaulter and the Congress has sought to lay down conditions for paying the arrears including reduction in its contribution to peacekeeping costs from 31 per cent to 25 per cent. The US also wants its contribution to regular budget be reduced from 25 per cent to around 20 per cent.

Pal said developing countries should have more say in the mandate that the missions are given.

The UN assesses the payment required from each state when a new mission is set up on the basis of a formula agreed to by the members. This is in addition to the payment required for the regular budget.