The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs has faulted the allocation of only N286 million to administer Nigeria’s 109 missions abroad.
Chaired by Mr Wole Oke, the committee objected to the Federal Government’s envelope budgeting system, saying it is not in line with extant provisions of the law.
Documents submitted by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the committee showed that the Ministry had recommended about N1.5 trillion for the budget, based on its needs assessment of the missions.
Speaking during an interactive session with the Ministry and the Budget Office of the Federation on Tuesday, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Wole Oke, said, “I have not seen anywhere in our laws where envelope budgeting is mentioned,” describing the budget as too poor for missions that were supposed to mirror the country’s image.
“We’re worried that what you submitted to Mr. President was not based on needs assessment, and it is at variance with the law,” he said.
In his presentation, the Director General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, explained that the budgetary allocation for the missions had been increased by 25 per cent in the 2025 budget, urging the National Assembly to pass the tax reform bills in order to boost the nation’s revenue generation.
He also recommended a reduction in the number of foreign missions until the country achieves better revenue generation. “Why don’t we consider a significant reduction of our foreign missions until we’re able to improve our revenue?” he stated.
He also noted that his hands were tied to the envelope budgeting system.
“We have 109 diplomatic missions abroad, comprising 76 embassies, 22 high commissions, and 11 consulates. The problem, as you rightly described, is as ubiquitous as Nigeria’s present worldwide.
“The situation was certainly worse three years ago when Nigeria’s debt service was approaching almost 100 per cent of the country’s revenue. We started to see improvement under this administration when, through debt financial engineering in year one, debt service was brought down from as high as 100 per cent to 55 per cent.
“If you talk to our missions abroad, they will tell you that last year was the year they started experiencing some relief. We’re still not there yet. Bold reforms have been embarked on by the current administration, starting with the liberalisation of the foreign exchange rate, and the withdrawal of subsidy on PMS and other products.
“We expect to save about N11 trillion from these two models adopted. The savings started to materialise in October last year, but the main beneficiaries, especially the state governments, collected the money and kept mute. But we knew that they took a lot more than they had for several years.
“We have brought before the National Assembly tax bills that you’re considering, and we expect you to improve them so that we’ll be able to collect more revenue.
“Mr President has gone out of his way to insist on 2.12 million barrels per day, a very ambitious target for oil output. He has seen that we must look for the revenue to attend to these needs.
That’s why this year’s budget is ambitious. Last year, it was about N36 trillion, but this year, it is almost N50 trillion…
“We have to continue to manage scarcity, whether we call it envelope budgeting,” he said.
