Members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs will on Thursday begin to visit a number of Nigerian missions abroad as part of their oversight functions.
Rep. Nnenna Elendu-Ukeje, the committee’s Chairperson who will lead the delegation, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.
Ukeje (PDP-Abia) told NAN the visit would take the lawmakers to selected missions in Africa, Europe, the Americas and Asia.
She said one of the reasons for the visit was to have an on-the-spot assessment of the state of Nigerian embassies abroad.
Other reasons, according to her, are the opportunity to know the disposition of the embassies’ members of staff, their functions and welfare.
“The committee will also verify the amount of money appropriated and released to each mission for the 2013 fiscal year and how such was expended.
“We will equally examine properties owned and rented by the missions as well as debts owed,” she said.
The lawmaker said the committee would also find out how much money the missions generated and remitted from their consular services to the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.
“We have to find out whether they are doing this diligently, in line with the constitutional provisions,” she said.
Ukeje also said the committee would try to find out whether the missions were
adequately funded as well as their engagements with the respective Nigerian communities.
“The aim of this visit, basically, is to reposition our foreign missions in line with Nigeria’s foreign policy objectives and see that money appropriated was judiciously utilised,” she said. (NAN)
A VERY NICE ATTEMPT BY D COMMITTEE AND WE HOPE THEY WL DISCLOSE TO NIGERIANS NICE RESPONSE
Although this is a welcome idea but the fact remains that only a selected few should go on this expedition as in my view it is another means of squandering public funds. Not more than three persons can effectively carry out the aforementioned duties. Also she made mention of Nigeria foreign policy objective, let us understand that this provision is constitutionally not justiciable.