UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterich said on Tuesday he had thought of selling his home in Manhattan, New York, to help bridge the UN budget deficit.

Guterich offered his proposal to diplomats to fill a deficit of $ 1.5 billion in the peacekeeping budget and another $ 492 million in the regular budget of the United Nations due to the failure of a number of Member States to pay their contributions.

“The first thing I did when I arrived was the question of whether I could sell the house,” said Guterich, who took over the IAEA’s General Secretariat in January 2017.

“I’m not joking, it’s a fact,” he told the UN budget committee.

The United Nations Secretary-General’s 4-storey building in central Manhattan, with a garden overlooking the East River, is located in the upscale neighborhood of Sutton, valued at tens of millions of dollars.

Guterich said he quickly realized he was not authorized to sell the house under UN agreements with the United States, the host government of the UN.

This attempt, however, highlights the severe constraints placed on the United Nations in its management of its assets and revenues.

Guterich described the financial problems as “accurate”, saying that even if all countries paid their contributions in time and in full, the United Nations would still face financial problems as the end of the year approached.

The United States, the largest financial contributor to international peacekeeping operations, also owed the largest amount of $ 852 million, followed by Brazil, Japan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Argentina, according to UN officials.