Fifth Committee

The United Nations top management official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today that the Organization was facing a “mixed” set of financial indicators for 2010, as an expected year-end positive cash position hinged on whether Member States paid their outstanding assessed contributions for the fourth quarter.

As part of its ongoing efforts to strengthen the accountability and transparency of United Nations activities, delegates to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today expressed strong support for the work of the two crucial oversight bodies — the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), and the Independent Audit Advisory Committee — as it took up their wide-ranging annual reports.

As it took a look ahead at the Organization’s objectives for the years 2012 and 2013, the Fifth Committee today praised the strategic plan shaped by Secretariat officials, while affirming the General Assembly’s key role in setting the priorities.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today adopted by consensus a resolution that lets six Member States — the Central African Republic, Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia — keep voting during this year’s sixty-fifth General Assembly session, even though they have fallen behind in their annual payments to the Organization’s budget.

Opening the second meeting of its sixty-fifth session with a discussion on the scale of assessments, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today heard delegates stress the need for all Member States to fulfil their legal obligations to the Organization by making their payments on time and in full.

Taking two weeks longer than planned, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today concluded its second resumed session by recommending to the General Assembly a peacekeeping budget of $7.2 billion for the period from 1 July 2010 to 30 June 2011 — slightly less than that approved in the previous financial year. It also produced a consensus draft resolution on cross-cutting issues, which had eluded the Committee for three years.

Approaching the end of its four-week second resumed session, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up the proposed budget for the United Nations Office to the African Union, estimated to require $10.6 million, with speakers expressing regret at its late submission by the Secretary-General, leaving barely a day to consider possible gaps, as described by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took up proposals to give the Secretary-General authority to commit $380.4 million in the next six months to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and $246.6 million in the next six months to the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), whose most recent budgets reached $732.4 million and $690.8 million respectively.

Encouraged by the decrease in arrears to both the United Nations regular budget and its peacekeeping account compared to last year, speakers in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this morning urged that States do even more to ensure that outstanding payments were paid on time and in full, and that the Secretariat reciprocate by making administrative processes more transparent and efficient.

Taking up the Secretary-General’s proposed $313.9 million budget for next year’s peacekeeping backstopping activities — known formally as the peacekeeping support account — speakers at the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) said increases must be proportionate to need, and called for “utmost prudence” in determining its size.