The United States still owes $ 491 million to the UN budget, spokesman for the organization's Secretary General Stephane Dujarric said at a briefing.

"The United States paid off last year's debt and some of this year's, paying 563 million U.S. dollars in the last few weeks," Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, told a regular press briefing.

In October, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that “the Organization is facing a severe financial crisis.  To be more specific, a severe liquidity crisis.  The equation is simple:  without cash, the budget cannot be properly implemented.  For the current biennium, budget implementation is no longer being driven by programme planning, but by the availability of cash at hand.”

The organization has even been forced to downsize some activities and switch to a cost-effective mode of operation at its headquarters in New York.

Total budgetary commitments amount to $ 1.355 billion. At the same time, Dujarric said that 7 countries owe 97% of this amount - the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Iran, Israel and Venezuela.