The House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Foreign Affairs to carry out a holistic investigation into the activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its missions.
This followed the adoption of a motion moved by Rep Ben Etanabene (Delta, PDP) during plenary in Abuja.
According to him, the government has set in motion, reforms for effective service delivery in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, parastatals and the Missions.
He however raised concerns that notwithstanding the efforts of the House, Nigerians around the world were still faced with general and urgent consular services challenges.
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The lawmaker noted that many Nigerians go through extreme difficulties to secure visas for legitimate travels including government officials and legislators after paying exorbitant visa fees.
“Many Nigerian students are stranded in foreign lands over issues that can be resolved and many Nigerians owned businesses around the world helping in contributing to the economy of those countries and sending remittances back home are suffering harassment and sabotage.
“Embassies in a bid to ease visa application processes have resulted to outsourcing the processes to agents whose cost of services are borne by Nigerians”, he said.
The lawmaker said several modes of visa applications are in force including express services with huge costs paid by applicants who are sometimes denied visas after such payments.
He said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in addition to budgetary allocations, benefits from intervention funds for running the affairs of the ministry and missions as well as the internally generated revenue by several missions around the world.
There are questions about the effective and efficient utilization of such funds over the years, hence the need for investigation.
He also said that the committee had received several complaints regarding issues of employment in the ministry and missions, appointments, postings, redeployment and disciplinary issues that affect morals and service delivery.
“The country has properties and assets across the world under various missions, many underutilized and several others abandoned which if properly audited and harnessed will enhance the efficiency of our Foreign Service Officers and increase the revenue that is generated by the Federal Government.
“In a lot of missions, local staff ceiling has been exceeded due to violation of rules and in some instances, the ceiling of Foreign Service Officers. This has further resulted in indebtedness in the respective missions.
“If these issues are not investigated and appropriate and urgent actions taken by the House, it may lead to loss of lives and properties, further difficulties in visa and consular services home and abroad, malfeasance and waste, inefficiency and loss of revenue; poor implementation of the government reforms.
The House after passing the resolution mandated its Committee on Foreign Affairs to investigate and report back within three weeks.
