Archive Article: Is The UN Bankrupt? 23rd Oct 98.
December 23, 2008

October 24 is the 53rd birthday of the United Nations – and it is on the brink of bankruptcy.

Many of the UN’s member-governments are failing to pay their subscriptions to the organization. The United States remains the largest defaulter, owing about two-thirds of the total money outstanding to the UN.

The UN spends about US$1.2 billion per year under its regular budget, while the entire system spends about US$8 billion.

These are minute sums of money. The best way of looking at the figures is on the basis of comparisons.

The annual expenditure by the world on the arms race would pay for the entire UN system for over a hundred years. The UN’s cost to each American per year (as per the government’s contribution to the UN) is about the cost of two movie tickets.

No governor of any American state has a budget smaller than that of the UN Secretary-General.The Secretary-General’s annual budget is about what Americans spend each year on cut flowers and potted plants.

The UN has only 51,000 employees. This is less than the number of civil servants in the NSW Government. The US civil service employs 2 million people. The McDonalds fast food chain has three times the number of employees as the UN. If the UN is inexpensive to operate, why does it have a financial problem? The most obvious reason is that governments accord the UN a low priority. The US government has a budget of over US$1,500 billion – and so it could certainly lay its hands on the US$1 billion it owes the UN, if it wanted to.

A more cynical explanation is that governments really do not mind the UN having financial problems. The problems keep the UN vulnerable to their particular pressure, and on a short leash. The UN cannot print its own money and it cannot borrow money, and so the members use their contributions as a lever on the UN.

But if the UN disappeared in the morning, it would be necessary to invent it again this afternoon to ensure that airline passengers are able to fly from one country to another, that telephone calls can be made from one country to another, that postal items can go from one country to another, etc. An international organization has to co-ordinate all these basic arrangements. Australia, irrespective of the party in power, has always recognized the importance of the UN. Australia pays 1.46 per cent of the UN regular budget, making it the 13th largest contributor to the UN (A$20.5 million).

Australia has always paid its subscriptions on time and in full. It is setting a good example to the rest of the world, not least to the United States.

BROADCAST ON FRIDAY OCTOBER 23 1998 ON RADIO 2GB’S “BRIAN WILSHIRE PROGRAMME” AT 9 PM, AND ON OCTOBER 25 1998 ON “SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE” AT 10.30 PM.