UNITED NATIONS – The Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, Kenzo Oshima, warned yesterday that unless the organization takes significant steps to wipe out widespread corruption, he cannot guarantee that his country will continue to support U.N. peacekeeping work.

“Unless immediate and convincing measures are taken to redress this problem,” Mr. Oshima said, “my government, which currently contributes 20% of the peacekeeping operation budget, will find it very difficult to maintain domestic support for underwriting peacekeeping operations.”

He specifically suggested that the force now being formed to intervene in the violence in the Darfur region of Sudan might get the financial ax.

In making his views known, Mr. Oshima sided with his American colleague, John Bolton, in an internal power struggle between top cash donors to the United Nations, who demand that their money be accounted for, and poorer countries struggling to maintain their position in the organization’s decision-making process.

Deep resentment over Mr. Bolton’s recent demands for quick and deep institutional change came out into the open this week when South African Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, representing a large voting bloc known as the “Group of 77,” raised objections to a Security Council hearing over scandals in the U.N. peacekeeping department.

Although yesterday’s hearing was mostly rhetorical and no action was taken, Mr. Kumalo called it “encroachment,” saying the session, scheduled by Mr. Bolton, who serves as February’s rotating president, amounted to a power grab. The elite 15-member council, he argued, is assuming a role reserved for the inclusive 191-member General Assembly.

The Group of 77 represents a powerful voting bloc of 132 mostly poorer countries that can control the assembly, which is charged with overseeing the procurement and peacekeeping departments. But the council – where America and other top powers own five veto-yielding permanent seats – is charged with dispatching peacekeeping missions to world trouble spots. “Manifestly, the Security Council has antecedent jurisdiction over this matter,” Mr. Bolton said.

Washington is the main donor, paying for 22% of Turtle Bay’s annual budget. Last week, in a letter to Secretary-General Annan, Rep. Henry Hyde, a Republican of Illinois, and Tom Lantos, Democrat of California, accused the Group of 77 of not caring about United Nations’s rampant waste and corruption. America also pays 27% of the peacekeeping budget, a fact Mr. Bolton highlighted when arguing that it has the right to lead hearings on how the money is spent.

Japan, Germany, and America may among them pay 50% of the peacekeeping budget, Mr. Kumalo said, but that does not mean they carry more weight at the United Nations. “This is not a private corporation,” he told The New York Sun. “They don’t own class-A stocks and the rest of us common stocks. We are all assessed according to our ability to pay.”

The U.N. chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, dampened hopes among some council members who anticipated that restructuring at Turtle Bay would result in reduced financial contributions. “Don’t expect a reform report to be cheap in the pocketbook,” he said.

“Where there is corruption, or management failures, we are acting in a much more proactive, post-Volcker way to address them,” Mr. Malloch Brown told the Sun after appearing before the council. He said he was “extremely sympathetic” to the difficulties of Japanese and American officials explaining to taxpayers why they need to pay U.N. dues. But, he maintained, “We do peacekeeping and field operations on the cheap” compared to the same endeavors when taken unilaterally by America.

An internal U.N. audit of the procurement department identified cases of fraud and waste amounting to $300 million related to purchases on behalf of peacekeeping forces. Seven officials have been forced by the United Nations to take a leave of absence with pay after the audit accused them of possible wrongdoing. In addition, at least 14 officials have been questioned in a federal investigation of New York’s Southern District into possible criminal activities at the department.