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| Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro © Miraflores Palace / Reuters |
The United Nations has
deprived a number of countries of voting rights following their failure to pay
the membership charge. The list of non-payer states includes Venezuela, which is
set to take over the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council in
February.
RT
report continues:
The
General Assembly has been informed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that due
to an inability to pay the required sum, the countries on the list will be able
to take part in voting only on extraordinary occasions, AP reported.
The
countries affected by the decision, apart from Venezuela, include the Dominican
Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Burundi, Bahrain, Libya, Mali, the
Marshall Islands and Vanuatu.
The
secretary-general has noted that an exception can be made for a state “if it is
satisfied that the failure to pay is due to conditions beyond the control of
the member.”
Thus
five poor and war-torn countries – Comoros, Guinea-Bissau, Sao Tome and
Principe, Somalia and Yemen – will still have a vote until the end of the
current UN session which comes in September, a resolution passed in the UN
stated.
Ban’s letter initially also featured Iran which until very recently has been under UN sanctions over its nuclear program. However, Iran has been excluded from the list since it “just paid”, restoring its ability to vote, assembly spokesman Daniel Thomas said.
The letter also provides information on the sum of money that a country has to pay to recover its voting rights. The sizes of debts tend to differ from a bit less than US$3 million for Venezuela to US$1,360 for Burundi.
Ban’s letter initially also featured Iran which until very recently has been under UN sanctions over its nuclear program. However, Iran has been excluded from the list since it “just paid”, restoring its ability to vote, assembly spokesman Daniel Thomas said.
The letter also provides information on the sum of money that a country has to pay to recover its voting rights. The sizes of debts tend to differ from a bit less than US$3 million for Venezuela to US$1,360 for Burundi.
The
loss of voting rights might be most painful for Venezuela, a major oil
producer, which is set to preside over the UN Security Council after Uruguay is
relieved from the duties. Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry hasn’t responded to the
news so far.
Venezuela
has suffered a significant blow due to the recent collapse in the price of oil
with its economy shrinking 10 percent and inflation hitting 159 percent,
according to the International Monetary Fund.
Unlike
Venezuela, Bahrain’s economy is more diversified, but still almost 70 percent
of it depends on oil sales revenue. Last week the government raised gas prices
for the first time in 33 years – from 27 cents per liter to 42, according to
The Gulf News. The Bahraini Foreign Ministry hasn’t commented on the UN’s
decision as well.
One
of the main criterion that determines the size of the UN membership charge for
a particular country is its financial capacity. The rates are reconsidered
every three years in accordance with the latest data on the countries’
revenues.
The annual charge must not
exceed 22 percent of a country’s budget, the General Assembly stated in 2000.
Thus, the US, the largest UN donor, accounts for 22 percent of the UN, Germany
– for 7.1 percent while France goes with 5.6 percent. Russia contributes around
2.4-2.5 percent to the UN regular budget as of 2014.
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