VIENNA -- The Argentinian director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, is expected to fire or lay off scores of consultants and long serving staff from next week though he is unlikely to touch Chinese personnel at the organisation, given that his daughter recently was promoted to a job in the cabinet of the Chinese head of the Food and Agriculture Organization, UN sources say.

 The forthcoming round of bloodletting is not unexpected since member states of the Vienna-based IAEA now owe more than 200 million euros, Grossi told a recent board of governors meeting of the UN agency. He cautioned that unless payments were made, then in a month's time "we will run out of money ... I will not be able to pay salaries or for the lights ... we will grind to a halt."

 As consultants and staffers brace for the axe to fall, Chinese employees were expected to be immune from the purge, given that Grossi’s daughter, Augustina Grossi, at P3 level as reported by Italian Insider http://www.italianinsider.it/?q=node/12011 was one of a raft of hirings to staff positions by FAO DG Qu Dongyu that consultants at the FAO have complained are “nepotistic,” jumping the queue of consultants who have been waiting for staff jobs, in some cases for decades. Western diplomats based in Vienna suggest the appointment of Ms Grossi to Qu’s personal office was a quid pro quo by China for her father in 2021 arranging the appointment of Hua Liu as Deputy Director General and Head of the Department of Technical Cooperation at the IAEA. Against this background Beijing would expect its citizens at the IAEA to enjoy unlimited job security, diplomatic sources say.

 Grossi told the board of governors he had called attention to the urgent finance situation because he found it "contradictory ... that we talk about so many important things when I don't know whether I'm going to be able to open the shop in one month". He said that 44 percent of member states were in arrears "including the major donors." What made it even more frustrating, he added, was that he had been in touch with the United Nations Secretariat in New York and with other agencies and global institutions and "no one is in a situation like us".

 "So we need commitments soon so we can continue doing what we are supposed to be doing," he added. He thanked the US ambassador for allowing "us to use some money in a creative way, to make it for this month ... I hope that others can do that as well. But the real thing, the fundamental thing, is that we cannot continue to say that we support this agency when we don't pay for its activity. It's as simple as that".

 The director general said that the only time there had been a similar situation for the IAEA was nearly 30 years ago, in 1995, which had triggered discussions and proposals and led to a "very complicated situation ... so I really hope that we will be able to avoid any such situation now – as you can imagine, it's very difficult for me to plan ahead when I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay salaries in one month”. He added: “So I count on your support and I count on that when we say that we support the agency we really do."

 In January, IAEA issued an update on its previous budget taking into account increases due to high inflation in Austria. For 2023, a total Regular Budget of 422.5 mln euros was proposed, which represented an overall increase of 19.4 million euros, or 4.9 percent, compared with the earlier approved budget. Both the operational Regular Budget (415.9 million euros – an increase of 19.1 million) and the capital Regular Budget (6.5 mln euros – an increase of 0.3 million euros) included the 4.9 percent price adjustment. This suggests that almost half of the required budget funds have not been forthcoming.

 According to the US Congressional Research Service (CRS), the United States is the largest contributor to the IAEA, providing an estimated  dlrs 200 mln a year in assessed and voluntary contributions.

 jf