Proposed Programme Budget 1994/95 – Fifth Cttee debate – Summary record (excerpts)

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 43rd MEETING

Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative

and Budgetary Questions:  Mr. MSELLE

CONTENTS

AGENDA ITEM 123:  PROPOSED PROGRAMME BUDGET FOR THE BIENNIUM 1994-1995 (continued)

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Programme budget implications of draft resolutions A/48/L.41, A/48/L.42 and A/48/L.43 concerning agenda item 35

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The meeting was called to order at 7.30 p.m.

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Programme budget implications of draft resolutions A/48/L.41, A/48/L.42 and A/48/L.43 concerning agenda item 35 (A/C.5/48/43)

2. Mr. MSELLE (Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions) said that paragraphs 4 to 6 of the statements submitted by the Secretary-General indicated that provision had already been made in the proposed programme budget for the resources required to implement the mandates contained in the draft resolutions, namely, to keep under review the situation regarding the question of Palestine and to continue to promote the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, to provide the Division for Palestinian Rights with the resources it needed and to request the Department of Public Information to disseminate information on the question of Palestine.  Accordingly, should the three draft resolutions be adopted, no additional appropriation would be required under the programme budget for the biennium 1994-1995.

3. Mr. BARIMANI (Islamic Republic of Iran), Chairman of the Committee on Conferences, referring to the proposed programme of meetings for 1994-1995 in connection with the question of Palestine, said that, in accordance with paragraph 6 of General Assembly resolution 35/10 A of 3 November 1980, and with the procedures adopted by the Committee on Conferences, that Committee had been informed that the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People would undertake an expanded programme of work which, for the biennium, would consist of 20 meetings, of which 14 would be held away from

(Mr. Barimani, Islamic Republic of Iran)

official Headquarters at New York – 8 in 1994 and 6 in 1995.  That programme of work represented a departure from section 1, paragraph 4, of General Assembly resolution 40/243, of 18 December 1985, and the Committee on Conferences therefore recommended that the General Assembly should grant an exception authorizing the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to hold the meetings away from its established Headquarters.  The Committee on Conferences also noted that the Secretariat would endeavour to combine meetings, in order to achieve savings, and wished to encourage the Division and the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People to seek every opportunity to maximize savings, and to make efforts to secure invitations and agreements from host Governments, to the extent possible, in accordance with paragraph 5 of resolution 40/243, in order to defray the actual additional costs directly or indirectly involved.

4. The CHAIRMAN proposed that, on the basis of the statement of programme budget implications of draft resolutions A/48/L.41, A/48/L.42 and A/48/L.43 and the recommendations of the Advisory Committee the Fifth Committee should inform the General Assembly that, should it adopt the draft resolutions, no additional appropriations would be required under sections 3A, 3C, 24 or 25E of the proposed programme budget for the biennium 1994-1995.  However, the General Assembly would have to approve an exception to the provisions of its resolution 40/243 of 18 December 1985, under which all United Nations bodies were required to meet at their established headquarters, in respect of the meetings that would be held away from the established headquarters of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

5. It was so decided.

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                          The meeting rose at 12.57 a.m.