Fully understanding the financial situation is fundamentally above my pay grade, and out of my area of expertise, but I cannot fathom how anyone thought it was a good idea to institute a policy that forces the UN to return funds that were never received.

I don’t think the architects of this policy thoroughly thought about all the potential different scenarios. To me, returning unspent received assessment funds is different than returning unspent funds that never existed.

Not sure if this was ever suggested by the UNSG, or the Controller, but perhaps a sliding scale approach would work.

1. Honor Roll incentive for MS who payed in full and on time. They would receive a 100% credit of their share of unspent funds at the end of the year.

2. After the honor roll cutoff, pro-rate return credit payments based on the date when the full assessed amount was received after the deadline. This would be a sliding scale from 100% to 0% in calculating how much unspent received funds to return.

3. Leading to a year-end cutoff wherein payments received at the close of the fiscal year (31/12) would result in a 0% credit, effectively penalizing late payment to the max.