Nigeria’s 119 foreign missions have been allocated the sum of N32.571 billion for the 2016 fiscal year, the budget proposal document reveals.
The document indicated that out of the N49.526 billion allocated to the foreign affairs ministry, the 119 missions have the lion share of N32.571 billion.
In September, President Muhammadu Buhari, had after a meeting with the permanent secretary ministry of foreign affairs, said the country would review the number of such missions, with a view to shutting down non-essential ones.
The President had said at the time that there was no point for Nigeria to operate missions all over the world “with dilapidated facilities and demoralized staff.”
But the budget estimate of the ministry shows that only fifteen missions out of the 119 have explicit allocations of funds for the execution of capital projects. It shows that allocations for the 114 other missions would be spent on personnel, overhead and other recurrent areas.
Nigeria’s foreign mission in New York (PM) in United States (US), where six foreign offices operate, has the highest allocation of N1.461 billion, followed by London office with N1.081 billion.
On the other hand, Tel Aviv Christian Pilgrims mission has the lowest allocation of N14.875 million, followed by NEPAD mission, Pretoria, South Africa with N56.023 million.
The main ministry of foreign affairs has an allocation of N13.424 billion, while other five agencies under the ministry have a cumulative budgetary allocation of N3.721 billion for the 2016 fiscal year.
Meanwhile, allocation for the research and development department of the federal ministry of defence will consume N12.411 billion in 2016 budget.
According to the budget’s document, the ministry of defence and its departments and agencies, which include army, navy, air force and others, have been allocated N429.098 billion.
But the main ministry office alone has a total of N35.658 billion, out of which acquisition of non-tangible assets – research and development & monitoring and evaluation – have an allocation of N12.615 billion.
Out of that, research and development receive N12.411 billion while monitoring & evaluation has N203.678 million.