The secretary to the government of the federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, on Tuesday, said the lingering indebtedness faced by Nigeria’s foreign missions has affected the nation’s integrity negatively.
The director of press in the office of the SGF, Mr. Willie Bassey said in a statement that Mustapha made the declaration in Abuja during the inauguration of a 13-member Presidential Committee on the Review of Number and Strategy for Resourcing Nigeria’s Diplomatic Missions Worldwide.
“As we are all aware, our diplomatic missions around the world are currently faced with multifaceted challenges following, among others, the scale of perennial indebtedness they find themselves.
“This poses attendant damage to our nation’s integrity. Consequent upon these, Mr. President approved the constitution of this presidential committee,” he said.
He also noted that some of “the cost-saving measures taken by the previous administrations in reviewing the foreign missions had not yielded the desired results, hence the constitution of the committee”.
Mustapha said the report of the committee would enable the president to tackle the root causes of the critical state of affairs of the diplomatic missions and its impact on the image of Nigeria in the international arena.
He added that the committee would come up with a broad-based and sustainable solution that is Service-Wide, as they relate to institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria, office of the head of the civil service of the federation, the federal civil service commission, among others, to holistically address the challenges in short, medium and long-term bases.
The committee which was given a three-month timeline has the following as part of its terms of reference: to determine the current number, categories of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions; subject matter desks worldwide and categorise their strategic importance and impact worldwide and make appropriate recommendations; identify and categorise the revenue generation capacity of missions, performance in this regard, causes and level of indebtedness; and review the understanding and application of critical extant policies, guidelines, circulars, codes, regulations, financial management systems, statutes, etc, across Nigeria’s Missions with a view to minimizing bottlenecks, misapplication and infractions.
In his acceptance speech, chairman of the committee, Mr. Martin Uhomoibi (retired federal permanent secretary), thanked President Muhammadu Buhari for the confidence reposed in him and the members of his Committee to review the foreign mission service with the aim of repositioning it for effective service delivery.
He assured the government of the committee’s preparedness not only to succeed in the task before it, but to also exceed all expectations.
