FG Pays A Whopping N5B In School Fees For Children Of Foreign Mission Staff

FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, AMBASSADOR OLUSEGUN ASHIRU.

ABUJA, February 02, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government of Nigeria pays over N5 billion as school fees for children of Nigerian employees working in Nigerian foreign missions, according to a revelation at the House of Representatives Thursday.

The Foreign Affairs Ministry had earmarked the same figure in the 2012 budget proposal before the National Assembly.

Following the discovery, Foreign Minister, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru was grilled by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by Hon. Nnena Elendu-Ukeje.

A bewildered Elendu-Ukeje expressed shock at the huge bill the ministry spends annually on school fees, adding that the ministry has a case to answer for the vague presentations to the National Assembly every year.

She noted that the Ministry normally brings a long list of beneficiary missions and the countries, but does not give a breakdown to show the names and number of benefiting children and the amount due to them.

The members of the committee also grilled the Minister over multiple security votes entries in its 2012 budget totalling almost N2 billion. According to Ukeje-Elendu, “You have put votes for security in four different places and that is the issue. You have four different sub-heads showing security votes. That is not acceptable.”

The Minister however said he would not want to discuss the issue of security in the open with the media in attendance.

Members of the committee also could not understand the reason why the ministry would spend over N2 billion on transport and travels for a course/study that costs less than N90 million.

But defending the expenditure, Ashiru said, “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.