International trips of officials at the Foreign Affairs Ministry will gulp N1.7 billion in the 2017 fiscal year, the budget proposal shows. 

The budget details indicate that out of the N13.2 billion allocated to the main foreign ministry, a total of N1.7 billion was budgeted for international travels. Local trips will cost N19.5 million. 

Out of the N13.2 billion, the budget proposals show that the foreign ministry headquarters is to expend N6.3 billion on capital expenditures while recurrent will gulp N6.9 billion. 

Aside foreign missions, the ministry has a total of five agencies; Technical Aids Corps, Foreign Service Academy, Institute for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Directorate of Technical Cooperation in Africa and Nigeria Institute of International Affairs. 

The 119 foreign missions have the lion share of N48.9 billion out of the N66.7 billion allocated to the ministry and all its agencies.

But the budget estimate of the ministry shows that only 22 missions out of the 119 have explicit allocations of funds for the execution of capital projects.  Allocations for the 97 other missions would be spent on personnel, overhead and other recurrent areas.

This is an increase from the 2016 budget where only fifteen missions got allocations for the execution of capital projects. 

2017 budget estimates provides that foreign mission in New York (PM), United States has the highest allocation of N1.9 billion, followed by the London mission with N1.4 billion.

Daily Trust