By Disun Amosun
The House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, has kicked against the Federal Government’s envelope budgeting system, saying it is not recognized by any law in Nigeria.
This is just as the Director General, Budget Office Tanimu Yakubu explained that budgetary allocation to the foreign missions were raised by 25% in the 2025 budget and urged the National Assembly to expressly pass the Tax Reform Bills in order to boost the nation’s revenue generation.
The Committee also faulted the allocation of only N286 million to service Nigeria’s 109 missions abroad.
Documents submitted by the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Committee showed that the Ministry had recommended about N1.5 trillion budgets, 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, Committee Chairman, Rep. Wole Oke said “I have not seen anywhere in our laws where envelope budgeting is mentioned”, describing the Foreign Ministry’s 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, it is at variance with the law”, he said.
The Director General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu also recommended reduction in the number of foreign missions until a time that the country achieves a 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 proclaiming almost 100 percent of the country’s revenue. We start to see improvement under this administration, when through debt financial engineering in year one, debt service was brought from as high as 100 percent to 55 percent
“If you talk to our missions abroad, they will tell 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 materialize 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 have for several years”, he added.
