Although the UN have tried in making sure that security council is without the control of the selfishness of the Big Five, but the said ‘Big Five’ still have a vehement tactical manipulation of the security councils, member states like the US, Russia and Britain can still act upon veto to intimidated and manipulate an order of the security council. And in so doing, the executive council cannot call them to book, hence there is no way Management and administration of the UN can be effective. But then there is a lot to be considered in the other angle of financial discipline, the UN in these areas has been on a precarious monetary battle in the last decade in managing their resources, or perhaps allocation of funds or Aid among who deserves to be favored. This is where the "Big five" somehow have conflicting ideas on who gets the benefits. Due to numerous researches to gather well-laid down work on the areas where the UN has been financially faulted. I was able to gather some quite unique materials that will be of favor to the general public and the African course. If there are persons who profess to think and even believe that the United Nations present precarious financial position and prospects are not so serious then, think again and better believe that the problem is serious and requires urgent attention of its 185-member nations.
Somehow somewhere, there are areas where clauses exist, and its requires diligent explanations of the economic geocentricism that exist among dominant 185-member states, which includes the USA, Russia, Britain, China, Japan, Switzerland, Ireland and South Korea. These members has always have a say in due payments, and at first can be problematic, and when time for allocations is near, then those who at first was laid-back in paying the dues are those who sounds loudest in who gets what. This is the cohesive irony in the whole of the UN Managerial Drama.
A clear analysis was taken very close to the beginning of March 1998, and according to the UN fiscal and policy section of Economic financing "edited by Ronald Maxwell Feb 1998". There are many determinant flaws in dues/debt payments and allocations. Meanwhile, At the end of September last year unpaid dues totaled US $2.4 billion (RM. 9.8 billion) for the regular budget, peacekeeping and international tribunals, the bulk is owed by the only remaining superpower - the United States: US $1.3 billion (RM. 5.2 billion). The much publicized Ted Turner's US $1 billion (RM. 4 billion) gift has not arrived and even after it has been paid it will not alleviate the organization's poverty. The fund is meant for specific purposes, for example, children's welfare, and not for regular expenditure. Ted Turner made his fortune through the Cable News Network (CNN) which he founded in 1980 to provide around-the-clock news service. But how this has affected the organization and those of African and the Middle East, and perhaps Asia has not been categorically define. Despite the needed homework in African, Asian and the middle east Poverty alleviation programme, the Organization on its own has not been successful to raise money towards their agenda programme, hence the cause of the obnoxious arguments and debates by the Big five and other cohorts to determine who gets what, and areas of economic concentration even when its disfavor the wishes and aspirations of Africa, Asia and the Middle east.
As long as 33 years ago, U Thant, the third United Nations Secretary-General and the only Asian to ever hold the post (1962-71) up to Mr. Ban Ki Moon, in a report to the General Assembly said that the financial position of the organization was "serious and merits the urgent attention and concern of its membership". It does seem that little has changed in three decades. And this question only need be answered by the co-efficient Big Five and their cohort.
The UN's appropriations for the biennium 1998-9 is US $2.532 billion (RM. 10.3 billion), about US $76 million (RM. 304 million) less than the 1996-1997 appropriations. Of this, Malaysia's contribution is US $1.76 million (RM. 7.2 million) or 0.168%. However, we will have to pay more in future, 0.18% in 1999 and 2000. Last year, 39 countries did not pay these dues, according to UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, in a letter he sent to the General Assembly, dated Feb 4. The big defaulters are Yugoslavia with a sum due of US $11.7 million (RM 46.8 million), Iraq US $7.043 million (RM 28.2 million), Georgia US $2.86 million (RM 11.4 million), Azerbaijan US $2.85 million (RM 11.4 million), Bosnia and Herzegovina US $1.08 million (RM 4.3 million), Moldova US $1.7 million (RM 6.8 million) and the smallest nations, Niger, US $5,700 (RM 22,800) and Costa Rica US $6,500 (RM 26,000) respectively. This is only a rough estimate by Donald Maxwell, UN's auditor general. But according to report on CNN's UN financial attaché, it is quite obvious that more things need to be done to maintain effectiveness in due allocation payment, plus debt repayment.
As of Dec 31, last year 18 countries did not pay their contributions to the organization's regular budget Leading the defaulters were: The United States, US $373 million (RM 1.5 billion) Ukraine US $17.6 million (RM 70.4 million), Brazil US $16.7 million (RM 66.8 million), Yugoslavia US $ 10.6 million (RM 42.4 million), Iraq US $7.1 million (RM 28.4 million) , Belarus US $4.6 million (RM 18.4 million), Argentina US $4.1 million (RM 16.4 million), Israel US $3.8 million (RM 15.2 million), Iran US $3.7 million (RM 14.8 million), Georgia US $2.2 million (RM 8.8 million), Uzbekistan US $2.1 million (RM 8.4 million, Tajikistan US $1.9 million (RM 7.6 million), Azerbaijan US $1.8 million (RM 7.2 million), Latvia US $1.7 million (RM 6.8 million), Lithuania US $1.4 million (RM 5.6 million), Armenia US $1.4 million (RM 5.6 million), Moldova US $1.2 million (RM 4.8 million) and Kazakhstan US $1 million (RM 4 million).
By March 5, 41 nations paid in full their contributions to the 1998 United Nations Regular Budget with France leading the list: US $68,292,675 (RM 273 million); Russia US $30,213,251 (RM 120 million), Malaysia $1,766,764 (RM 7.1 million), Singapore US $1,756,218 (RM 7 million), Laos US $10,516 (RM 42,000) and Vietnam US $105,163 (RM 420,000). Thus far, only these four Asian nations have made it into the Honor Roll of 1998. But the uproar is that the loudest drums don’t even bother to pay their debt or perhaps necessary dues. What a pity!
Annan has been lavishly praised by all and sundry, including US President Bill Clinton and George Walter Bush Jr., over the years for a job well done in averting a United States-led bombing of Iraq. Saddam Hussein agreed to allow the UNSCOM inspection teams to resume their work unimpeded including inspecting the sites of the eight presidential palaces hitherto out-of-bound. But this was then, to be practical about this, Annan from all indications was been Used by the influential Big five member-states, which included USA and the Great Britain. This was also a resource waste, but there was seemingly no account taken as it reflects on the fiscal year of UN.
Whether Iraq fully implements what it has signed remains to be seen. After all it is just a piece of paper and one can always wriggle out of one's commitment by cleverly insisting on the small print! Nevertheless they did bomb Iraq anyways, and now Saddam Hussein is facing international war crime tribunal, only God knows if he can escape. At the moment, we are still watching the successes and lapses of our Chinese Diplomat Ban Ki-Moon.
The Ghanaian diplomat, I agree, has done an excellent job in Bangladesh, there Annan has somewhat performed to an expectations of Gap here. He has also now spent 15 months pushing various reforms at the UN which I know have produced good results even if he has not wholly earned respects from his critics. Like any big institution and government, the UN, too has its budgetary wastes, managerial problems and administrative horrors but he has done all he could since taking over the appointment in January last two year.
If Annan had not gone on his important diplomatic mission to Baghdad he would have been in Washington for a second time within a year to plead with Congress to pay the US $1.3 billion (RM 5.2 billion) which the US owes the world body. But the irony here is that the same people owing the UN also implements sanctions to affect a quick pay of dues by member states who shares no similarities like the Big Five and their cohort.
However, he visited Washington Last year to meet President Bush and members of his administration, to discuss not only Iraq but also the debilitating problem of the US $1.3 billion (RM 5.2 billion) in back dues that the US owe to the UN. The US has not paid its UN dues in full and on time for some years. In 1995 it paid less than half of its total assessment. These gaps have never been closed.
Annan in an article in the New York Times (Monday, March 9 1998) asks, and then answers himself. "Who benefits from a cash-starved United Nations? The aggressors of the world whose designs we seek to foil; the violators of human rights whose abuses we endeavor to curtail; the drug dealers and international criminals whose dealings we reveal; the arms merchants whose traffic in deadly weapons our conventions help to stop. Also impeded is our humanitarian work, against hunger, deprivation, the loss of homes and livelihood." This were the cosmic questions and possible answers that won Mr. Annan the popularity which decided his second term, and which has been the determinant to exaggerating the cynic problems the Big Five has caused.
The Iraq crisis demonstrates how indispensable the UN can be in the areas of peace and security.
If it is not honored, the agreement that Annan negotiated in Baghdad will allow UN weapons inspectors to expand their search for and to eliminate Iraqi weapons of mass destruction - an outcome that alternative courses of action might not have yielded. But now we are not aware that all efforts to assert valid that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction could only been seen from a theoretical analogies which altogether lacks empirical facts. Honestly there were no weapons of Mass destruction, even though they had threatened, yet there was no intention to nullify the Security Council’s order to disarm their weaponry or any other nuclear advancement of Mass orientated destruction. Annan though could prove that there were no weapons of mass destructions, but the influence of the so-called Big Five became superlative, because they have ulterior motives to back slum Iraqi's treasury.
He asserts that the public becomes aware of UN contributions to conflict resolution only occasionally, when a crisis erupts that thrusts the UN onto television screens and newspaper headlines. Annan's trip to Baghdad 1998, 2000 and 2001 was such an occasion.
However, institutional reforms are more difficult to portray to the public than crisis management. Under Annan's reform package, he has achieved an actual decrease in the UN budget down to US $2.53 billion (RM 10.12 billion) for the 1988 and 1999 biennium. Nearly 1,000 posts have been cut outright, bringing the staff size below 9,000 and other jobs are being held vacant. Administrative expenditures are being cut 20% of the budget, from 38%.
Annan says there is a saying that all politics is local. But increasingly, all local politics has global consequence. And those global consequences, in turn, affect the quality of local life everywhere. So a renewed partnership between the UN and the US is in the interest of both. But it has to be paid for. And who dares to pays for it; all that erupts is a whole bag of scam. This is the result where majority of the 185-member states pays their dues, the others like cohorts of the Big Five do not pay; but they will have a huge voice in determining who gets what, or which nations is worthy to be allocated funds. Sometimes it could be in their which is usually the case, they don’t pay, but stand to deprive others who pays. Look at the warring nations of Africa and the Middle East, when they need medical care during time of war, or perhaps Aid in terms of security, no nations of the Big five is ready to take a stand in an effort to lend a hand, except on the basis of foreseen economic benefits.
A critical look in most African economic goals like those of NIGERIA from the late 1975 till 1985 through 1993, the IMF through special interest on the oil reserve parachuted a common ideal proliferation through giving Loans based on selfish dynamic circumstances. Meanwhile in most other countries Loans were not given simply because there were no interests there. They cut most institutional spending for the sake of complete utilization of the loans in areas that needed to be used, yet the funds were squandered through the help of same advisers. This was a deliberate silence of act done to perpetuate debt prolongation; it was still the same people that agitated areas where Nigeria Economy could veto their interest. It means however that Nigeria's economy is been controlled by alien ideas and not the ideas of which will better the constitutional course of the rule of law and the common man, because the policies developed to utilize the Loans by Successive government was baseless and caricature. A lot of agenda without National goals was lacking in government spending towards reconstructing the economy, this was the lateral motives of the protagonist of the Aid.
There were also the ulterior motives they had to squander the money, and they had back-up from forces that made the Aid possible. At the initial stage no policies or committee was set aside to check how the money was been utilized, instead considerations like what level/amount of oil that we could explore was discussed, and other monetization policies was drawn out; devaluation of the currency was the main economic weapon that was used by IMF to fuel their hold on the manipulation of the Nigerian Economy. Frankly speaking, the UN saw this, but could not checkmate the IMF inhuman deliberate alienation of the Nigeria Economy, since they knew very well the huge negativity of the Aid. I do not think there have ever been a day Nigerian government has not thought twice about the side effect of the IMF loan, nor do they know the danger since each successive government fell into the hypnosis of the IMF actors like giving of minute incentives.
The only Nigerian government that was able to foresee this evils was the Abacha regime, who upon deliberation with IMF, and which IMF could not stand their action towards improving the average lives of the citizen; or whose agenda since their inception into aiding Nigerian Government actualize their policies has not better any areas of the economy. Critical examples was cited in areas of oil, road, agriculture, and other human resources; before this time everything was dilapidated, therefore they had to send IMF packing. By no means the international community saw a mountain to sit upon to sanction Nigeria, because they had ulterior in the main drain of the Nigerian economy. But a simple question will be asked most times by each international economic philosopher, and they are thus as follows:
1. Why did IMF decided to sanction Nigeria during Abacha regime, was it because of the Inhumanity perpetuated by the regime on activist or what?
2. On what ground was it able to carry out the sanction?
3. Who were the actor member states that carried out the order? Where the Big Five Members amongst them?
4. What are their roles in the international community systems and in globalization?
5. What interest do they have that are not in other countries' economy?
6. In what ways have they acted to better the lives of those they gave the aid?
7. What were their motives to given this Aid, and what policy was put on ground to actualize the purpose of the load?
8. Why was the sanction necessary upon asking them to back off Nigerian Economy by the Abacha' military administration?
9. To this end was there any time that programmes to which the Aid was granted, was directly monitored by IMF? And if yes on one hand, why were there flaws in completeness in most of the programme agenda if their interest in the Nigerian Economy was not get what they had contributed and nothing else? And if no on the other hand, to what motive was the AID granted?
10. Are there any possibilities that the IMF belongs to the UN, or that UN has an upper hand in decision making in terms of granting AID? If yes why the intimidation to subdue most majority of the 185-member nations to advance post economic slavery? What are the criteria that must be followed to be beneficiaries of the IMF AID?
11. Can the IMF answer the Question "How has the IMF worked with nations to actualize their Debt repayment"? If yes, how? And if no, Why?
These are just common areas that UN and the IMF have committed international moral felony against member nation, and they should look into their chronicles of establishment and foundation back in 1945, which can attest to my aforementioned statements. And they are the only bodies that can answer these questions if the UN is to strive long and maintain its existence. This in fact identifies the so many clauses in managerial problems the UN has been facing. Until the Big five 'first come and first being' ego syndrome is dropped for the progressive existence of the UN can there be Unity and advancement in globalization, international understanding and complete eradication of Terrorism and War. The Big Five should be call to international Order, and admonish them to follow their vows to maintain world peace and not to deliberately intimidate member states with low level economic growth; or pursue selfish economic second class interest.
As if to convince Washington further Annan paraphrases what Winston Churchill said to Franklin Roosevelt: "Give us the tools and we will do the job."
I could not agree more.
If the US was right to insist that a piece of paper signed by Iraq could not be taken on trust, can the international community also not believe what the president of the United States says? Bush has already promised five times that the US would settle its debts. The comparison may not be very compelling; still the end result is the same: non-compliance on one hand and non-payment on the other. Contrary to what many believe, Annan does not have an enviable job; agreed it is a great honor and, prestigious. While he has to work hard for world peace he has also to work equally hard to recover the money from the US which Washington is obliged to pay unless it does not consider the agreement which all states agreed to abide by in any consequence.
While, on 14 March 1997, Clinton gave credit to Annan for the Iraq deal, the American chief could only promise he would press the Congress harder to pay the U$1.3 billion Washington owes the UN. I believe the UN is not going to get the money any sooner because Conservative legislators continue to insist on linking the release of the money to abortion restriction which Clinton rightly and adamantly opposes.
As one Congressional source told me: "It is either pandering to the pro-abortion interest and lobby for paying the UN arrears. If paying the UN is a major American policy interest as Clinton claims, he knows what he must do".
The abortion curbs can be vetoed by Clinton but the prospect of a fight on abortion could be politically and diplomatically sensitive in the midst of the continuing financial turmoil and economic meltdown in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. The US will lose its voting rights in the UN the moment it does not pay at least US$600 million (RM 2.4 billion) before New Year's Day, 10, so says Joseph Connor, the American Under Secretary-General for Management and Budget.
Besides, where is the American moral and political obligation to the international community? It is exasperating and disgraceful that unrelated domestic political difference over abortion is withholding Congressional approval of funds to pay UN debts and other funds for international purposes such as to enable the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help troubled Asian economies which, among other things, includes buying American goods which can only help the US economy. Meanwhile, the IMF on one hand is being parachuted to help fund most US self centered aspirations. In Africa this has been glaring in their involvement with governments to waste fund, yet they - IMF claim to proffer economic solutions while they have not done their home work in paying back their dues, or perhaps debt they owe the UN.
In Heaven's name, why should an American domestic political fight overstep Washington's international commitment? Congressmen should realize that by their amendment to include the "abortion clause" they are interfering with other nations' domestic domain. The Clinton administration is right in not embracing the amendment which compromises the freedom of personal choices open to women abroad. The amendment deserves defeat. The irony and the sad thing is that despite this the UN and the International Monetary Fund, on the whole, are rightly or wrongly perceived to be instruments of American policy. It can be argued therefore from various perspectives. Whatever angle we deem it fit to view it from. The elevation is such of a dorsal one.
Washington has unfortunately allowed issues irrelevant to American commitment to the UN to intrude. The US must pay its debts just like any other nations. Congress must immediately stop hectoring the UN.
The UN, as the Washington Post said, was ordered to reform itself. It has and is delivering. It is the turn of the US to deliver (the money it legally owes). I am shocked to read from past new-York times what Senate Majority leader Trent Lott said: "I am a lot more interested in what the United Nations is doing or not doing in Iraq than I am in talking with (Annan) about United States arrears." This is an absurd, callous, offensive and undiplomatic statement to make. Annan has delivered what Washington and the Security Council wanted and saved the US a bombing expedition which might not have been a great success.
He has been universally credited with bringing peace closer-even temporarily in the Middle East. Annan's effort may lead to the eventual disappearance of proscribed weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. But this is just the ball game here, and I pray that Annan and the 185-member states reason out the managerial problem in the UN as fast as possible which is resulting to the lukewarmness of the Big Five to crack their naughty heads towards world peace and not power tussles.
While the paper signed by Annan and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz may be vague on several critical points, the obligation of the Americans to pay their debts is crystal clear. In the middle of 1997, Clinton has asked Congress to pay and it has hitherto not only refused to act but has added irrelevant subjects in order to delay fulfilling its obligation. I don't expect him to confront Congress with all the troubles, legal or otherwise, on his hands. However, all this is discouraging and disappointing.
The US Congress and Americans like Senator Trent Lott were known to have added to a political cost the US regret, and suffice in the global economic recession and the wanton bail out/bail-ins, and job cut, third in the history of the US economic. But so far, the Obama Administration has not been saying anything as concern their Debt repayment, which also met such unholy fate in the Bush Administration. However the cowboy president was concerned with American-self ego enthusiasm to mobilize forces in slumming the war zone Afghanistan and Iraq for something better describes as family business crusade, and not the American dreams to sublimate their solidarity and vows they owe the world. In same the rigorious manner, Obama Administration is amidst all bail-ins and economic advisory board expertize is still flowing in the economic disco in recent times; and the US may be plung into another economic crisis in 2015; this phase may tear the world apart in varying dimension, leading to chaos.
The UN
Kofi Annan
Mr. Annan
Mr. Ban Ki Moon
Member Nations
DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS
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