Mr. Chair,

1. I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Group of 77 and China on agenda item 149: Administrative and budgetary aspects of the financing of the United Nations peacekeeping operations - United Nations Logistics Base (UNLB).

2. The Group would like to thank Ms. Bettina Tucci Bartsiotas, Assistant Secretary-General, Controller, and Mr. Carlos Ruiz Massieu, Chair of the Advisory Committee on the Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) for introducing their respective reports.

Mr. Chair,

3. At the outset, the Group recognizes the important role of the UNLB in supporting peacekeeping missions to deliver their mandates, and therefore continues to believe in improving its functioning.

4. We note the recommendations of the Board of Auditor's pertaining to the UNLB, including the Global Service Centre (GSC), on the redeployment of resources; the strategic flight coordination services; procurement and contract provisions; the Galileo decommissioning project for which UNLB acted as the data factory, and on environmental matters. The Group will seek to understand the secretariat's intentions in following up on these recommendations.

Mr Chair,

5. The Group will carefully examine the proposed restructuring and renaming of the Service for Geospatial Information and Telecommunications Technology as the Field Technology Services, as well as the implications of its deployment in two locations, Valencia and Brindisi. In line with the recommendation of the Advisory Committee, we wish to reiterate the need for transparency with respect to the functions, financial resources and distribution of staff between the two locations.
         

6. The Group further recalls General Assembly resolutions 69/207 and 70/286 requesting the Secretary General to develop a scalability model for the UNLB. The Group regrets that the scalability model remains limited to the Field Technology Service, and calls on the Secretary General to provide further details of the resource implications of the scalability model.

7. The Group also concurs with the Advisory Committee, that more information as well as a thorough analysis of the revised concept of operation of strategic deployment stocks should have been presented. The Group wishes to recall the recommendation of the Office of Internal Oversight Service (OIOS) to consider alternative locations for holding the strategic deployment stocks. The Group is interested in particular, to learn about the obstacles foreseen by the Secretariat in holding the strategic deployment stocks in a location close to the Peacekeeping Missions, and how the issue of obsolete Strategic Deployment Stocks has been addressed in the current proposal.

Mr Chair,

8. The Group is cognizant of the complementarity between the roles of UNLB and the Regional Service Center in Entebbe, Uganda, in supporting the Peacekeeping Missions in various aspects. However there seems to be a lack of clarity on the roles of the Strategic Air Operations Center (SAOC) in Brindisi and the Transport and Movements Integrated Control Center (TMICC) based in Entebbe.

9. We therefore wish to echo the recommendation of the Advisory Committee regarding the need for the Secretary-General to review the coordination between the Transportation and Movements Integrated Control Centre and the Strategic Air Operations Centre, as well as the need to transfer some of the functions to the Transportation and Movements Integrated Control Centre. The Group will closely follow up on this issue during the informal session.

10. In conclusion Mr. Chair, allow me to assure you of the Group's readiness to engage constructively in order to reach a successful conclusion on this agenda item.

I thank you.