NASS C’ttee pledges to improve Foreign Affairs ministry, agencies’ performances

The Joint National Assembly Committee on Cooperation on Integration in Africa and NEPAD has promised to change the workings of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its agencies to meet modern realities.

The co-Chairman of the committee, Rep. Mohammed Bago (APC-Niger), made this known at a joint budget defence session on Friday in Abuja.

“We need to change how your people are used to working, we are not going to tolerate that attitude anymore, and we want you to deliver.

“We want some deliverables; we have to see the ministry engage other foreign bodies in Africa very well.

“We want to see serious engagement with regional bodies like the African Union, European Union and the United Nations.

“We are faced with the issues of immigration, we are faced with poverty and sickness, we need to work with these agencies to bring these to an end,” he said.

Bago said that the budget allocation for the Institute of Conflict Resolution and other agencies under the ministry in the last three years was nothing to write home about.

According to him, it is too meagre for you to do anything reasonable; it is not even enough to sponsor trips in a year.

He said that the agencies should provide the committee with details of their international funding for effective scrutiny.

The Rep said that the committee needed to know what the ministry and its agencies were doing and to see how to support them to achieve set goals.

Earlier, Chairman of the committee, Sen. Chimaroke Nnamani, said that as far as governance was concerned, the foreign affairs ministry had a role to play.

He said that Nigeria was faced with menace of poverty as about 50 per cent of the population are extremely poor.

Nnamani said that no fewer than 1.6 million children are on the streets saying that NEPAD has a lot to do in job creation, education and women empowerment.

He said that ethnic distrust, farmer/herder conflict, banditry among other issues were telling on our democracy.

The Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Mustapha Suleman, said that the overhead and personnel cost of the 2020 budget remained the same in line with that of 2019 presidential directive.

He said that a total of N5.5 billion was, however, earmarked for capital expenditure.

Addressing newsmen at the event, the National Coordinator of NEPAD, Princess Gloria Akobundu, said that NEPAD under the directive of President Muhammadu Buhari was working to ensure a better system in the country.

She said that the January to December budget circle would enable the agency to deliver on its mandate better for the people.

She said NEPAD is a major agency in addressing poverty and driving economic development and job creation.

“We are putting our heads together to see how we can support especially now that NEPAD is undergoing reforms from what it used to be to become African Union Development Agency.

“The President graciously approved that so that we can have better efficiency in our job delivery,” she said.

The coordinator said although there were challenges militating against the mandate of the agencies, NEPAD was equal and ready to deal with all challenges to achieve the set goals.