Excessive Debts Is Not A Good Image For Nigeria – Geoffrey Onyeama

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama has come out to say that plans are already in progress to decrease the number of International Organisations Nigeria belongs to.

He recently revealed that this is the case because of the paucity of funds right about now.

According to him, the ministry is currently struggling with meeting its contribution to those International organizations, so it might be best to cut ties with them.

He added that Nigeria is owing too much money nowadays and that is not a good image for the country.

His words, We are owing a lot, and in the Federal Executive Council (FEC), there is a process to rationalise and cut down on the International Organisations we belong to.

“This is because we are just owing monies left and right and it is not even good for the image of the country.”

“Just on Monday, the ambassador in Hungary called to say they are going to throw them out from the chancery building. That the landlord is coming and that they do not have the money to pay.

“And we get that from a lot of missions across the world and that is not a sustainable way of running foreign service.

“Then this exchange rate differential with the CBN is really something we need to address once and for all.

“It is not so easy, all of these things are computed in naira and all the payments abroad are in dollars and once the exchange rate is changed, it never goes the other way, it always goes up, it never comes down visa vis the dollar. This means immediate shortfall for all our missions.”

“We have been receiving letters from the National Assembly forwarding to us various claims and judgement and asking us to pay them.

“We have a big challenge with clothing allowances, as you know, all officers in our missions from grade level 7 and above are entitled to US$2,500 clothing allowance per annum.

“In the 2021 budget, about 1,312 officers will be expecting the payment of these allowances and if you take at the CBN official rate, we are looking at N1.2 billion.

“What we have available is N762 million for that, to able to pay the clothing allowances, we still need at additional sum of N500 million.”