Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unuk2budget121107.html
UNITED NATIONS, December 11 -- A day after U.S. Ambassador Mark D. Wallace said that the United States "expects that the final actual total budget" of the UN for 2008-09 will "represent an increase of 25%," the UK's Permanent Representative John Sawers told Inner City Press, "I am not sure where the figure of twenty five percent comes from," and indicated the UK's hope that the budget be approved before Christmas. The lack of transparency in the UN budget process was exemplified by two closed-door meetings on Wednesday night, one about the Darfur mission and its $250 million no-bid contract to Lockheed Martin, the other about the UN's "administration of justice" proposals. The U.S., represented by Bruce K. Rashkow, is said by a participant to have called into question the proposed administration of justice budget, unless the U.S. secures funding that it wants, for example for the Procurement Task Force.
Thursday at the Security Council stakeout, Inner City Press asked U.S. Permanent Representative Zalmay Khalilzad
Inner City Press: It was said yesterday that the U.S. position is that the current budget proposal is a 25% increase, it's way too high and the U.S. won't vote for it. Some people have said the U.S. will only vote for it if it is a 12% increase or they'll put it into next year. What is the U.S.'s real position on this?
Ambassador Khalilzad: It is premature to judge -- to say how we will ultimately decide. Certainly the budget as proposed is too high. And besides we don't have the total budget yet, we have a piece of the budget. A major piece, the major piece but there is going to be perhaps, they say, as much as six to eight hundred million dollars of additional expenses. We would like to see a clear prioritization. We would like to see where savings can be made. And we are discussing with other major donors and others with influence over the membership of the United Nations and we are talking to the Secretariat as well as to what are the options to deal with this. We have not come to a final judgment on it because we are in the midst of the discussions. I've had personally some discussions with some of my colleagues, permanent representative of some of the countries.
Apparently not with UK Ambassador Sawers. We will have more about the budget.
