UNITED NATIONS, Nov 24: A confrontation between developing countries known as the G77 and the United States is brewing at the world body over a plan for management reforms, threatening to derail an effective functioning of the organization, according to diplomats.

On Tuesday United States Ambassador John Bolton warned that the United States may bypass the United Nations in resolving crises if the world body did not move on instituting reforms that US believes are essential for a smooth running of the organization.

At issue is how management-reform proposals that would broaden the power of the secretary general’s office are being pressed assertively by the United States and aggravating tensions between the 191-member Assembly and the office of the secretary general.

At a closed-door meeting of the G77 last week, Chairman Neil Stafford of Jamaica told delegates that Secretary General Kofi Annan should be told in clear terms that his job is not that of a chief executive officer and that the United nations cannot be run like a US or a multinational corporation.

In a letter to Jan Eliasson, the president of the General Assembly has also implicitly accused the UN secretariat of trying to bypass the UN’s Fifth Committee, which deals with administrative and budgetary matters, and the advisory committee on administrative and budgetary questions (ACABQ) in the proposed reform exercise.

On his part Mr Bolton said the General Assembly had ‘essentially not made Progress’ since President Bush and other world leaders convened a UN summit in September to endorse a platform of change, including proposals to increase scrutiny of spending practices and to create a human rights council that would exclude rights abusers.

He said continued resistance to change in the organization would drive the American public away from it.