India among 34 UN member states to pay budget dues in full & on time

India is among a handful of only 34 UN member states which paid their regular budget dues in full and on time to the world organisation. India paid 23.25 million dollars in regular budget assessments by January 31, 2019, the 30-day due period specified as per UN's Financial Regulation rules. 

Only 33 other nations paid their regular budget assessments in full within this 30 day due period. Subsequent to the end of the 30 day due period (January 31), 95 additional member states paid their 2019 regular budget assessment in full.

As of October 8, 2019, 129 Member States have paid their regular budget dues in full, according to UN sources. Member states have paid USD 1.99 billion towards the 2019 regular budget assessment, while the outstanding amount for 2019 for regular budget is USD 1.386 billion.

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However, 64 states are yet to pay their regular budget dues in full for 2019. These include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Central African Republic, North Korea, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Oman, the Philippines, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, US and Venezuela. While India has been among the few countries to have fully paid its dues to the UN on time, the UN owed India USD 38 million, among the highest it has to pay to any country, for peacekeeping operations as of March 2019.  The UN is facing a severe liquidity crisis, reaching its deepest deficit of the decade, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, warning that the world organisation will not have enough cash by next month to cover payrolls. 

Guterres warned that in the current month, the organization will reach the deepest deficit of the decade. We risk exhausting the closed peacekeeping cash reserves, and entering November without enough cash to cover payrolls, he said. 

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In a letter intended for the 37,000 employees at the UN secretariat and obtained by AFP, Guterres said on Monday unspecified "additional stop-gap measures" would have to be taken to ensure salaries and entitlements are paid.

"Member States have paid only 70 per cent of the total amount needed for our regular budget operations in 2019. This translates into a cash shortage of USD 230 million at the end of September. We run the risk of depleting our backup liquidity reserves by the end of the month," he wrote.

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