The UN owes a total of USD 55 million to India for its contribution to the world body's peacekeeping operations, the second highest outstanding payment to any member country. Under-Secretary-General for Management Yukio Takasu, in his semi-annual overview of the Organisation's finances, told reporters on Wednesday that the top troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping operations such as Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Egypt "deserve timely payment" for their contributions and participation in UN peacekeeping. As on March 31 this year, the UN owed a total of USD 777 million to member states for peacekeeping operations. Of this, outstanding payment for amount owed for troops, formed police units and Contingent Owned Equipment to Ethiopia was the highest at USD 64 million. The UN owes India USD 55 million for peacekeeping operations, the second highest amount, followed by 53 million dollars to Bangladesh and 41 million dollars to Pakistan. Takasu said member states who are owed outstanding payments "deserve to be reimbursed" and the organization is "making every effort" to make the payments to the nations. However, as at May 3, India was among the 39 member states which had fully paid all assessments it owed to the UN. India's Ambassador to the UN Syed Akbaruddin pointed out the lag in paying outstanding dues to member states despite the fact that the same member states had paid their dues in full. "Who pays on time & who is owed huge dues by UN," he tweeted, referring to the amount the UN owed to India and other countries for peacekeeping at a time when these nations had responsibly paid their dues on times. Earlier Takasu told the UN's Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) that on the regular budget, assessments were issued in 2017 at a level of USD 2.578 billion, USD 29 million higher than in 2016, he said. Payments received by April 30, 2017 amounted to USD 1.6 billion, unpaid assessed contributions by that date amounted to USD 1.4 billion, USD 8 million lower than a year ago. The total amount outstanding for peacekeeping operations at the end of 2016 was USD 1.8 billion, compared to the USD 976 million outstanding at the end of the previous year, he said.
