From Nasdaq.com
https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/brazil-could-lose-its-u.n.-vote-due-to-debt-2019-12-04
Brazil could lose its U.N. vote due to debt
DEC 4, 2019 8:31AM EST
UNITED
NATIONS/BRASILIA, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Brazil is in danger of losing its vote
at the cash-strapped United
Nations if it does not pay some of the $400 million it owes, U.N. and Brazilian
officials said.
Of Brazil's $415.8 million bill, $143 million is owed for
2019, they said.
Under U.N. rules, if a country is in arrears in an amount
that equals or exceeds the contributions due for the previous two years, it can
lose its General Assembly vote unless the country can show its inability to pay
is beyond its control.
"There is considerable
risk that Brazil, for the first time ever, will lose its right to vote at the
U.N. as of January 1, 2020," the Economy Ministry's secretary for
international relations Erivaldo Gomes said in an internal memo.
Brazil is the second-largest
U.N. debtor after the United States and the Brazilian government must pay at
least $126.6 million by the end of the year to avoid losing its vote, Gomes
wrote in the memo seen by Reuters.
The Economy Ministry did not
immediately reply when asked by Reuters whether a payment would be made this
year.
Currently Comores, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia are
subject to this rule but the 193-member General Assembly voted in October to
allow them to continue to vote.
The United Nations said in October that total arrears
were $1.385 billion, of which $860 million is for the $2.85 billion regular budget
for 2019, which pays for work including political, humanitarian, disarmament,
economic and social affairs and communications.
U.N. officials said then that seven countries made up 97
percent of $1.385 billion owed - the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico,
Iran, Israel and Venezuela - while 58 states made up the rest.
Washington is responsible for 22 percent of the regular
budget and in October owed some $381 million for prior regular budgets and $674
million for the 2019 regular budget.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday that the
United States had since paid some $500 million to the world body and now owed
about $491 million.
Dujarric said 138 of the 193 U.N. member states had now
paid their regular budget dues, but that some $772 million was still owed for
2019.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he
introduced extraordinary measures in September to cope with the cash shortfall
- vacant posts cannot be filled, only essential travel is allowed, and some
meetings may have to be canceled or deferred.
Guterres had warned that the United Nations may not have
enough money to pay staff in November, but enough partial payments have since
been made by some states, U.N. officials said.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Marcela
Ayres in Brasilia; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
(anthony.boadle@tr.com +55
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