Lebanon says it would pay UN dues after shedding voting rights

BEIRUT – Lebanon pays arrears to the United Nations to regain its rights on the world physique, its overseas ministry stated on Friday, after the nation, which is in deep monetary disaster, misplaced U.N. voting rights for the second time in three years as a result of unpaid contributions.

U.N. Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres, in a Jan. 17 letter, listed Lebanon together with Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, South Sudan and Venezuela as international locations that had at present misplaced their U.N. Normal Meeting vote.

Lebanon’s overseas ministry stated cost of the U.N. dues would happen “instantly, in a means that preserves Lebanon’s rights on the United Nations”. A ministry assertion didn’t touch upon the explanations for the delay.

Guterres stated in his letter that Lebanon must pay a minimal of some $1.8 million to regain its vote.

Beneath U.N. guidelines, a rustic can lose its Normal Meeting vote if is in arrears by any quantity that equals or exceeds the contributions due for the earlier two years, except it exhibits proof of an incapacity to pay that’s past its management.

Lebanon has been in deep disaster since 2019 when its monetary system collapsed on account of many years of profligate spending, mismanagement and corruption by ruling elites.

The state, which defaulted on its overseas forex in 2020, has been largely paralysed since, with spending slashed throughout the board, with overseas support from america and Qatar serving to to pay troopers’ salaries.

The disaster, which the United Nations says has left eight in 10 Lebanese poor, has been left to fester, main the World Financial institution to explain it as a “deliberate melancholy” orchestrated by ruling factions.

(Reporting by Timour Azhari in Beirut and Michelle Nicols in New York Writing by Tom Perry Enhancing by Frances Kerry)