Mr. Chair,

1. I have the honor to speak on behalf of Group of 77 & China and would like to thank Mr. Chandramouli Ramanathan, Controller, and Assistant Secretary-General and Mr. Abdalla Bachar Bong, Chair of the Advisory Committee on Budgetary Question for introducing the respective reports.

2. The Group wishes to express our deepest gratitude to the Governments of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Netherlands for their continued support to the work of the Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunal. We take this opportunity to reaffirm our support to the work of the Residual Mechanism and to reiterate that the consideration of proposed budget and allocation of necessary resources for mandate delivery form a major part of our collective interests.

3. The Group recalls the reiterated vision of the Mechanism as a small, temporary and efficient structure, whose functions and size will diminish over time in Security Council’s resolution 2637 (2022). The Group takes notes of the initiation of the trial activities for the Kabuga case and hopes this procedure will have a timely and successful outcome as it is the only case in trial. However, the group remains concerned with Kabuga’s case and its trial being handled in the Hague. In accordance with the statute of the Mechanism, the Arusha branch has a mandate regarding the meeting and trial of all criminal cases involving fugitives whom the ICTR indicted.

4. The Group of 77 and China note that the Secretary-General is proposing the requirement for the maintenance of the International Mechanism for amount US$ 82.2 million after re costing, which represents a reduction of $ 7.0 million from the last year approved appropriated. The Group has considered this under appropriation in context of its performance reports-2021, in which the final expenditure was reported $7.2 million less than the approved appropriation. We understand that these under-expenditures are due to the impacts of Covid-19 as have been observed in the financial performance reports for the other regular budget sections.

5. It is expected that the under-expenditure which was noted in Chambers in Arusha, the office of Prosecutor and the chambers in Hague, will not be the case in the 2023 budget as we are building back from the impacts of COVID-19.

6. In this connection, we also note with concerns that a gross return of surplus amounting to $10.2 million as a credit against the assessments to member states for 2023 due to this under expenditure and cancellation of commitments amounting to $3million as reported in the audited financial statements for the year ended 31st December, 2021

7. We also appreciate the constructive comments, observations and recommendations of the Advisory Committee related to the proposal before us and we look forward to discussing them more thoroughly. We have also taken note of the report of the Board of Auditors on the accounts of the Mechanism for the year ending December, 2021 as well as status of implementation of the related recommendations as presented by the Secretary General.

8. In conclusion, the Group stands ready to engage constructively on this agenda item during the upcoming informal consultations.

I thank you Mr. Chair.