80 Foreign Missions excluded from 2019 budget

&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph"><&sol;p>&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;&NewLine;<p class&equals;"wp-block-paragraph">Only 30 of the 110 foreign missions will be considered for budgetary allocations in the 2019 fiscal year&period;<br>&NewLine;Mustapha Suleiman&comma; permanent secretary of the ministry of foreign affairs&comma; disclosed this while defending the ministry’s budget before the senate committee on foreign affairs&period;<br>&NewLine;He said there was a 64 percent cut on the capital votes proposed for the missions in the 2019 budget&comma; when compared to the N11&period;3 billion earmarked in 2018&period;<br>&NewLine;According to him&comma; the N4&period;1 billion was proposed for the missions for 2019 can only cover 30 missions critically in need of funding&period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;As a result of this&comma; only 30 missions could be considered out of 110 missions for purchase of representational car&comma; renovation&sol;completion of ongoing projects&comma;” he told the committee&period;<br>&NewLine;Monsurat Sunmonu&comma; chairman of the committee&comma; wondered why the ministry had such meagre budget in spite of the challenges of Nigerian missions abroad&comma; while expressing concern over their functionality&period;<br>&NewLine;The welfare of Nigerian diplomats has been a source of concern&period; There have been cases when diplomatic officials were unable to pay utility bills&comma; rent or their children’s school fees&period;<br>&NewLine;In 2017&comma; officials of the Nigerian embassy in the US protested the non-payment of their salaries for three months&period;<br>&NewLine;Shehu Sani&comma; vice-chairman of the senate committee on foreign affairs&comma; has accused the federal government of treating the embassies abroad with lack of seriousness&period;<br>&NewLine;Sani said this when the ministry of foreign affairs appeared before the committee to defend its budget&period;<br>&NewLine;He said many of the nation’s embassies abroad were in a sorry state&comma; lamenting over how the poor condition of the toilet in Nigerian mission in Moscow&comma; Russia&period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;No responsible nation that has clear cut development- driven and visionary foreign policy will deliberately under-fund her foreign missions&comma;” the senator said&period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;For the past four years this committee has been over-sighting this ministry in terms of budgetary appropriations and other assistance&comma; no significance progress can be said to have been made &period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Most of our missions are in sorry state by not being able to pay their electricity or water bills and even the nation’s diplomats too are in a state of hunger and indebtedness based on information gathered or practical experience witnessed&period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;The so-called diplomats cannot pay their children school fees&comma; and the worst of it is the toilet of the Nigerian embassy in Moscow&comma; Russia&comma; is stinking due to non-functionality of its flusher&comma; embarrassingly making anybody that uses it to flush it with bucket of water fetched from adjoining embassy&period;<br>&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;It is saddening that from all indications and based on budgetary proposals tabled before this committee&comma; government is not making any serious attempt in tackling the global ridicule that smaller countries like Cuba&comma; and Jamaica&comma; are not facing&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;