On Saturday, the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its "regret" at the loss of Lebanon's right to vote in the United Nations General Assembly due to non-payment of the financial contributions due from it to the international organization.
The United Nations announced on Friday that seven countries, including Lebanon, which is suffering from months of economic collapse threatening its citizens for their livelihoods and jobs, lost the right to vote for not paying the necessary contributions.
In a statement carried by the National Information Agency, the Foreign Ministry said it "regrets" the decision, hoping that "the matter will be addressed as soon as possible, because the matter can be corrected."
For its part, the Ministry of Finance affirmed that "the minister was instructed to pay the amount due on Monday morning," without specifying its value.
Under Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations, "a member of the United Nations who is late in paying his financial contributions to the organization shall not have the right to vote in the General Assembly if the value of the delay in it is equal to or in excess of the value of the contributions due on him in the previous two full years."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not specify the reasons for the delay in the payment of contributions, but confirmed that it “performed all of its duties and terminated all transactions within the legal deadline, and conducted reviews more than once with the stakeholders without result.”
The ministries usually submit their financial requests to the Ministry of Finance to release the required amounts and pay them. However, the Ministry of Finance, for its part, announced that it had "not received any review or demand to pay any dues due to any party."
After years of sluggish growth and the inability of the authorities to undertake structural reforms, Lebanon has been witnessing for months the worst economic crisis since the Civil War (1975-1990) amid a severe liquidity crisis and a rise in the prices of basic materials, at a time when the World Bank warned of the high rate of poverty (one third of the Lebanese) ) To fifty percent.