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Several countries have lost their voting rights in the UN General Assembly due to non-payment of membership fees. Three more are on “probation.”
Secretary General António Guterres wrote in a letter to the President of the General Assembly, Volkan Bozkirthat eight countries lost their voting rights in the UN General Assembly due to non-payment of membership fees. Africanews writes about this.
Iran tops the list, which must pay at least $ 16.2 million.
The remaining countries are the African states of Niger, Libya, Central African Republic, Congo, South Sudan, and Zimbabwe.
In addition, Comoros, Somalia, São Tomé and Príncipe are on parole.
According to Article 19 of the UN Charter, a country loses the right to vote in the UN General Assembly if its debt to the organization exceeds its payment in the last two years. The charter also gives the 193-member General Assembly the power to decide “that the default is due to conditions beyond the member’s control,” in which case the country can continue to vote.
Representation of Ukraine to the UN reportedthat Ukraine was the first of all to pay its legal contribution in 2021 in a timely manner and in full, topping the honorary symbolic list of responsible contributors to the UN budget.
The amount in question is not specified. In 2019, Ukraine’s contribution fixed up nearly $ 1.6 million
Last year, Lebanon, Venezuela, the Central African Republic, the Gambia, Lesotho, Tonga and Yemen lost their voting rights at the UN due to non-payment.
In 2019, 146 of the 193 UN countries paid contributions to the organization’s budget in full. 47 countries did not contribute to the UN budget. The United States’ debt to the UN was $ 491 million. Guterres said the UN faces an acute funding shortage.
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