Assembly adopts United Nations budget.

The General Assembly on 22 December, in concluding the current segment of its fifty-second session, appropriated $2.532 billion for the 1998-1999 budget and approved a scale of assessments for 1998-2000, which maintained a ceiling rate of 25 per cent, but lowered the floor rate from 0.01 to 0.001 per cent. The world forum took those actions on the recommendations of its Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary).

The Assembly also decided to consider reviewing the scale for 1999-2000 at its resumed session in 1998, based on such factors as the status of Member States' contributions to the regular budget.

That provision was an "open door to permit a revisiting of the scale" for 1999-2000, Ambassador Bill Richardson of the United States told the Assembly after the vote. His country would work over the next months to bring about circumstances that made sure that its entrance through that door was welcomed by other Member States, he added.

Jean-Luis Wolzfeld of Luxembourg, who spoke on behalf of the European Union, Cyprus, Norway, as well as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, said the European Union would agree to reopen discussions on the scale of assessments only after the United States had adopted legally binding provisions to clear its arrears in full and to respect its financial obligations under the United Nations Charter. Any unilateral reduction of the amounts owed by the United States to the Organization could not be accepted, he stated.

The Assembly, in approving the 19981999 budget, stressed that the reform proposals would be implemented with full respect for its relevant mandates, particularly the medium-term plan for 1998-2001. The budgetary effects of some of those proposals were legislated in the budget. The Assembly also decided, among other things, to provide for the post of Deputy Secretary-General and its salary and emoluments, and to increase the total to about $13 million in the development account.

It also agreed that the new Department of Disarmament Affairs and the Office of Communications and Public Information should be led by Under-Secretaries-General, and reaffirmed that the United Nations reform and reduction of posts must not entail involuntary separation of staff.

In some other matters, the Assembly acted on the UN common system, human resources management, pattern of conferences, financial statements and reports of the Board of Auditors, review of the United Nations efficiency, and the financing of the International Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. It also decided to admit the International Seabed Authority to membership in the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, with effect from 1 January 1998.

RELATED ARTICLE: 'Three Positive Results'

cited by Under-Secretary-General Connor

There had been "three positive results" of the fifty-second General Assembly session, stated Joseph E. Connor, Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, on 24 December 1997 at Headquarters, as he briefed correspondents on the adoption of the United Nations programme budget for the 1998-1999 biennium and the new approved scale of assessments. The budget, as legislated, and the staffing levels were down, and all of the Secretary-General's reform proposals that had financial implications had been approved, he said.

The 1998-1999 programme budget, totalling $2.532 billion, meant a reduction of $76 million, or approximately 3 per cent, as compared to the budget for 1996-1997. The 1994-1995 biennium had appropriations of $2.632 billion, so the 1998-1999 budget would be "down $100 million" from that figure, Mr. Connor added.

From 1994, the United Nations budget had been on a "downward mode", he went on. The 1998-1999 biennium contained 8,741 regular budget posts, down from 10,012 posts in 1996-1997 and represented a net reduction of 954 posts. That reduction was just short of the 1,000 posts identified for suppression in the Secretary-General's proposed budget for 1996-1997.

As for the new scale of assessments, Mr. Connor said "countries with uncertain economies" would usually be "counterbalanced by those with improving economies". Thus, Japan would have an increase of more than 2 full percentage points, while the Russian Federation would go down 1.5 percentage points. "Those were very big changes", he added.

Other fine-tuning of the scale meant a measurement base of 6 years instead of 7.5, and modifications in the formula whereby reductions were granted to countries with low per capita income, Mr. Connor said.