Ministry of Foreign of Affairs has decried 62 per cent reduction in its 2019 Capital Budget.
The Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Amb. Mustapha Suleiman, made this known when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs to defend the ministry’s Budget.
He said N7.61 billion was proposed for 2019 Capital Budget to cover capital projects for its headquarters, agencies under it and foreign missions.
He said compared to the 2018 Appropriation total of N83.31 billion, there is a reduction of N9.68 billion as a result of “sharp cut in the capital proposal for 2019, adding that the 2019 budget for the ministry is N73.62 billion.”
Suleiman said the capital budget was “grossly inadequate to cater for the line items.
“It is imperative to state that the budget ceiling brought down the capital budget from the 2018 Appropriation of level of N20.19 billion to N7.61 billion.”
Suleiman said of the N7.61billion the 2019 capital budget for the headquarters was N2.55 billion compared to 2018 budget N5.55 billion, a 55 per cent reduction.
The permanent secretary noted that the reduction would affect posting and return entitlement of ambassadors and officers as well as United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and Africa Union (AU) and contribution to international organisation.
He stressed that the budget would not be enough to handle posting of ambassadors, heads of mission and officers, calling on the committee to intervene for increased allocation.
Suleiman further pointed out that Foreign missions’ 2019 capital budget of N4.12 billion, 64 per cent reduction from 2018 budget of N11.33 billion, could only cover 30 out of the 110 Missions abroad.
“As a result of this, only 30 missions could be considered out of 110 missions for purchase of representational car, renovation and completion of ongoing projects.”
The Chairperson of the committee on foreign affairs, Sen. Monsurat Sunmonu, also decried the poor funding for the ministry, particularly the foreign missions.
She expressed concern that in spite of poor state of Nigerian missions abroad, the ministry came up with meagre budgetary proposals for 2019.
Sunmonu said the committee’s intervention in 2018 helped to tackle some of the challenges faced by those on foreign mission.
She, however, assured that the committee would do all within its powers to ensure adequate funding for the ministry in view of its critical mandate.
Sunmonu noted that in 2018, the committee decided to separate money meant for the missions from that of the headquarters.
“Each mission was able to access its fund directly.
“We hope for the best and expect that our missions get to where they were on the past,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the core mandate of the ministry is formulation and implementation of Nigeria’s foreign policy, which it strives to perform effectively by working closely with other international organisations.
