Fifth Committee

Delegates offered a range of views on how to better manage the United Nations budget for both active and closed peacekeeping missions, as the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) opened the second part of its resumed sixty-sixth session this morning and adopted its programme of work.

Following two weeks of protracted, closed-door discussions, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this evening concluded the first resumed part of its sixty-sixth session by approving a resolution that stressed the importance of promoting a culture of accountability in the United Nations Secretariat and called on the Secretary-General to improve his reporting on progress to that end.

Convening this morning to scrutinize proposals to better utilize resources for official United Nations air travel, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) agreed that the Organization must do more to avoid “egregious examples of waste” in such areas as the daily subsistence allowance to United Nations staff travelling on official business and the use of frequent flyer miles.

As the United Nations top management official this afternoon presented the Secretary-General’s progress report on creating an accountability system within the Secretariat to the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), some delegates criticized it for not giving enough evidence to support its claims of success.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today weighed in on the Secretary-General’s proposal to restructure the pension schemes for incoming judges of three United Nations courts — a move that would save the Organization nearly $10 million in the next three decades.

Proposals to change the methodology to determine the scale of Member States’ assessments to the United Nations, concerns over the delay in implementing the Capital Master Plan and whether to make public reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) dominated the discussions of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today, as it opened its resumed session.

After protracted, all-night negotiations, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) wrapped up the main part of its sixty-sixth session Saturday morning by recommending a $5.152 billion budget for the Organization for 2012-2013.

As the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) this afternoon took stock of the financing needs of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), delegates urged approval of the Secretary-General’s proposed amounts to keep that operation running until the end of next June.

While agreeing that the current funding and backstopping arrangements for the United Nations special political missions were inadequate, delegates in the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today argued over how to rectify that situation and offered diverging views on the Secretary-General’s proposals for doing so.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) today took stock of the financing requirements for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as it heard Secretariat officials shed light on progress in completing the Tribunals’ work and preparing their transfer to residual mechanisms.