FG budgets N5bn for diplomats' children's school fees

The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday queried Minister of Foreign Affairs Olugbenga Ashiru for allocating about N5 billion as school fees for children of the ministry's staff in foreign missions.The Senate Committee Chairman on Foreign Affairs headed by Senator Mathew Nwagwu (Imo North) also flayed the Federal Government over debts owed its foreign missions, describing the situation as embarrassing.The MPs, who expressed their dissatisfaction during budget defence at the National Assembly complex yesterday, described the expenditure as a 'huge bill the ministry spends annually on school fees'.Committee chairman Rep Nnenna Elendu Ukeje (PDP, Abia) said that the ministry has a case to answer for the 'vague budget presentations to the National Assembly every year.'The lawmaker alleged that the ministry never gave a breakdown to show the names and number of children of the staff and the amount due to them.The members also queried the minister over multiple security votes entries in the 2012 budget totaling about N2 billion.Rep Elendu disclosed that the committee gave templates to the ministry and its parastatals which were not followed.But the minister said he would not want to discuss the issue of security in the open with the media in attendance.Members of the committee also questioned the ministry's reason for spending as much as over N2 billion on transport and travels for a course that cost less than N90 million.'We travel to get the best. You need to get well-trained diplomats. Without training, you will not get good diplomats. Without training, there will be no results. We send some of them to Oxford, some to Italy as they will be competing with the best from the world,' the minister said in self defence.Also, a member of the committee, Rep Sekonte Davies (PDP, Rivers) accused the minister of subverting the 2011 Appropriation Act by sending a circular to a number of missions stopping them from implementing the capital components in their 2011 budget.Displaying a copy of an internal circular from the ministry, he gave the names of some of the Embassies and missions as those in Ghana, China, Mali, Iran, Algeria Indonesia and Guinea Bissau.The legislators also expressed surprise at the huge expenditure the ministry incurred in the payment of contributions for membership of foreign organisations.Ashiru had earlier told the Committee that the ministry paid $16 million to the African Union (N3 billion), N300 million to the United Nations, Commonwealth N285 million, apart from the OIC and other organisations.
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