New York, 25 September 2002

Mr. Chairman,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the Group of 77 and China on the organization of work of the main part of the Fifth Committee of the Fifty-seventh Session of the General Assembly.

Mr. Chairman,

The Group of 77 and China would like to congratulate you and the other members for your election to the Bureau of the Fifth Committee. Also, we take this opportunity to wish you and the Bureau’s members the best success in guiding our discussions and to assure you of the full cooperation of the Group in achieving our common objectives in the interest of the Member States and the United Nations Organization.

The Group is confident that, under your leadership, this Committee will be able to accomplish all the important tasks that have been entrusted to it.

Likewise, I would like to express our appreciation to Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the outgoing Chairman, as well as to the other members of the previous bureau, for their dedicated efforts in bringing the extremely difficult matters of this Committee to a successful conclusion.

Mr. Chairman,

The Group of 77 and China also thanks you for the draft programme of work and the status of the documents for the main part of the fifty-seventh session of the General Assembly, as contained in documents A/C.5/57/L.13 and A/C.5/57/L.23.

The Group would like to observe that the proposed programme of work should reflect a balanced allocation of time with due priority to those items of work that are time bound. The guiding principle for inserting items in the programme of work should be the request made by the previous resolutions of the General Assembly.

The Group of 77 and China is deeply concerned about the late submissions of documentation which seem to have worsened this session, and which will surely disrupt the smooth work of the Committee. This situation affects all the regional groups and, in recent years, has proved to be a serious impediment to the proper functioning of all the committees, not just the Fifth.

This chronic problem should be addressed seriously to ensure that the Secretariat complies with the six-week rule, which is reaffirmed every year by the General Assembly. In this context, we emphasized implementation of the relevant provisions of the General Assembly resolution 54/248 and its rules of procedure.

The Group requests the ACABQ that when scheduling the consideration of issues to be discussed by the Fifth Committee, consideration be taken of the time-bound and priority issues as well as the programme of work of the Fifth Committee.

Mr. Chairman,

With regard to specific items of the programme of work, the Group would like to make some general remarks. Some items that should be considered during this session do not appear in the programme of work, in particular, since this session is the personnel year; the Group noticed that no meeting was scheduled for Comprehensive aspects of Mobility, Monitoring and Control Mechanisms in the Office of Human Resources Management and Discrimination in recruitment.

The Group of 77 and China has carefully reviewed the list of documents for consideration by the Fifth Committee in its main part during the Fifty-seventh Session of the General Assembly and is quite concerned that several of the reports, that have been issued, are not included in the programme of work.

Mr. Chairman,

Now, the Group would like to refer to the letter of 27 June 2002 from the President of the General Assembly to the Chairman of the Fifth Committee (A/C.5/56/46).

The Group of 77 and China endorses the recommendation of the Committee on Contributions on the requests for exemption under Article 19 of the Charter of the United Nations, in the case of the Comoros, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, the Republic of Moldova, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia and Tajikistan. At this time, the Group endorses the request of Burundi to be exempt for the implementation of Article 19, as the substantive reasons that were given by the COC for the afore-mentioned countries was also applicable in the case of Burundi’s petition.

The Group 77 and China has followed closely the work of the Committee on Contributions during their last session from 3 to 21 June 2002. In this regard, it fully supports the recommendation adopted by the Committee on the request of Argentina and Afghanistan for the ad-hoc reduction of their assessments for the year 2003.

Mr. Chairman,

In concluding, the Group attaches great importance to the efficient functioning of this Committee and notes that the agenda contains complex issues. We, therefore, are ready to engage in constructive negotiations with the usual spirit of cooperation and mutual understanding with our negotiating partners for the successful conclusion of this session, within the allocated time frame and I would like to assure you of its full cooperation and wish you a great success.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.