The Federal Government of Nigeria has released a sum of $60 million for 65 critically distressed Nigerian missions in serious debts and crisis.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Jideofor Kwusike Onyeama, disclosed this to State House correspondents on Wednesday after a cabinet meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The minister explained that this was as a special intervention fund to rescue many Nigerian embassies in several countries of the world.
He said $32 million was approved in November 2017 and was in the process of being distributed to the embassies around the world.
The minister added that another $28 million was also in y process of being distributed.
Onyeama also stated that a sum of N7 billion was approved for the headquarters of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He said earlier in 2016 when the Naira was terribly fluctuating, the first intervention fund of N16.3 billion had been successfully distributed to all embassies.
The minister said the dollars the embassies were receiving at that time were too low to sustain them.
He added that the second approval of N933 million also been released for renovations and payment of other debts in October, 2017.
“A lot of the debts and the crisis in our embassies and missions around the world have been building over the last 10 years and Mr. President decided that he will no longer accept the situation where we are sending Nigerians out to represent this country and not giving them the resources to be able to carry out their tasks.
“Hence, he (Buhari) made provisions and directed that these funds should be released to them.
“So, the situation is still not perfect, but this has come in very handy and of course, in the interest of transparency, we wanted to show how these funds had been disbursed,” Onyeama explained.
