During a press briefing, immediately after his appointment, the new Director-General announced that the organisation welcomes all nations to join, but noted that his first priority was to steer the new budget through the next meeting of all the Member-States, this October.

The OPCW has been hindered in its primary objective – verification of the destruction of chemical weapons – by a method of accounting that can be found only in bureaucratic organisations, unburdened by the necessities of private industry.

According to the regulations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, all inspection costs are to be borne by the inspected country. This is so that those countries not possessing chemical weapons are not “penalised” by having to pay more than their assessed regular contribution and the country possessing the chemical weapons in question is encouraged to be more forth-coming with evidence of its compliance with the Convention, thereby minimising the need for inspections. A fairly reasonable objective.

The problem lies in the accounting procedure. The inspections are paid for AFTER they occur and a bill is sent to the inspected country, which then has several months to pay the OPCW Inspectorate. Again, a fairly reasonable procedure.

Since the annual budget covers only operational and administrative expenses, there are no funds specifically allocated for inspections because it is impossible to predict how many inspections will occur in the following year.