Fifty-Ninth General Assembly

Fifth Committee

45^th Meeting (AM)

FIFTH COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS $595.5 MILLION INITIAL BUDGET FOR SUDANMISSION

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning approved a budget of $595.5 million for the initial establishment of the United Nations Advance Mission in the Sudan (UNAMIS), for the period 1 July 2004 to 31 October 2005.

That budget total, subject to General Assembly adoption, will comprise $279.5 million, including $100 million previously authorized by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), for the period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005, and $316 million for the period 1 July to 31 October 2005.

With respect to financing of the commitment authority, the Committee recommends the Assembly apportion among Member States a total of $497.87 million for the period from 1 July 2004 to 23 September 2005, comprising $279.5 million for the period 1 July 2004 to 30 June 2005 and $218.4 million for 1 July to 23 September 2005.  It decided further to apportion among Member States $97.6 million for the period from 24 September to 31 October 2005.

As it approved that draft resolution on the Sudan financing without a vote (document A/C.5/59/L.48), the Committee also noted that the General Assembly had never pronounced itself on the use of assessed peacekeeping contributions for the purposes stated in paragraph 15 of the Advisory Committee's report -- disarmament, demobilization and reintegration -– and decided to revert to that issue in the context of its consideration of item 123, entitled “Administrative and budgetary aspects of the financing of the United Nations peacekeeping operations”, during the second part of its resumed fifty-ninth session, in light of additional information to be provided by the Secretary-General.

In the text, the Committee also expressed concern about the financial situation with regard to peacekeeping activities, particularly the reimbursement to troop contributors that bore additional burdens owing to overdue payments by Member States of their assessments, and at the delay experienced by the Secretary-General in deploying and providing adequate resources to some recent missions, particularly those in Africa.

Emphasizing that no peacekeeping mission would be financed by borrowing funds from other active operations, the Committee invited voluntary contributions to UNAMIS in cash and in the form of services and supplies acceptable to the Secretary-General, to be administered in accordance with the procedure and practices established by the General Assembly.

At the outset of the meeting, Felicity Buchanan (New Zealand), coordinator of the negotiations on the draft, said agreement had been reached on paragraph 7 of the text on the basis of agreement with the Secretariat that funds for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration would not be used earlier than 1 July 2005.

Prior to the Committee’s action on the draft, the representative of Mexico called attention to the fact that the General Assembly had not spoken on the matter of establishing the Personnel Conduct Unit.

Mohamed Najib Eljy (Syria), Committee Chairman, said there would be an opportunity to review that agenda item at the start of the sixtieth General Assembly session.

The representative of Costa Rica said his delegation supported the statement by Mexico’s delegate and understood that the Child Protection Office would be located within the Mission, though that matter was not specified in the text.  He asked the Secretariat to be more transparent and provide more information so that the Committee could take responsible decisions on peacekeeping missions.

Prior to adjourning the meeting, the Chairman said that the Committee’s approval of the text had concluded the first part of its resumed session and that the second part would be held from 2 to 27 May 2005.

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