Delegates at today’s Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) meeting aired their concerns on the financing of the proposed renovation of the historic Palais des Nations in Geneva – estimated to tally nearly $1 billion - and the Secretariat’s first year of work in carrying out a comprehensive information and communications technology strategy.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today began examining the proposed compensation package for the United Nations system, including a more performance-linked pay system, a single pay scale for staff with or without dependents, as well as implementation of the new retirement age of 65 for existing staff by 1 January 2017.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today recommended personnel appointments to fill upcoming vacancies in the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and two other bodies that help the 193 delegates manage the United Nations vast human resources and its finances.
Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today reiterated a call for establishing a separate account for special political missions as their growing share in the regular budget, at above 20 per cent, distorted the United Nations’ finance and could usurp funding for development and other key areas.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today approved a draft resolution that aimed to improve the quality of conference services held in its offices around the globe while upholding the equal use of its six official languages in the written world of documents and publications as well as crucial interpretation and translation services.
A United Nations initiative to improve its delivery of administrative services worldwide, known as the Global Service Delivery Model, came under scrutiny today by the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), as delegates pointed out that the envisioned system lacked an overall plan for integration with other ongoing business transformation drives.
Gathered today to discuss the Organization’s finances, delegates of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) once again prodded each other to make their full, timely financial payments to help the Secretariat ease a cash crunch in the regular budget and satisfy the mandates outlined in the United Nations Charter.
The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today began its examination of conference management, including issues related to overall costs, multilingual translation and interpretation, document issuance, and the use of resources and facilities, while approving proposed revisions to programme planning and evaluation rules as well as recommended ways to better implement results-based budgeting.
Delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) once again threw their support behind an independent panel now examining the internal justice system set up in 2009 to resolve disputes for tens of thousands of United Nations employees around the world.
The Organization’s financial indicators for 2015 were “generally sound and positive,” except for the cash position of the regular budget, whose funds had been depleted, the United Nations senior management official told the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today.
