Federal Government has said it is in the process of reducing Nigeria’s membership of International Organisations and associated financial obligations, to save the Nation from being embarrassed internationally.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, stated this yesterday after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.
“Basically Nigeria is a member of 310 International Organisations and a committee was set up to review the rationale for our continued membership of such a large number of Organisations”.
She mentioned that the committee recommended that the country retained membership of 220 of the 310 Organisations. However, she did not name the Organisations that Nigeria will cease to be its member.
“Basically this is prudence and value for money, Nigeria doesn’t need to be a member of every single Organisation but those we are members of, we have made a decision at the FEC to prioritize and pay our obligations because that is part of the Nation’s image”.
“That is what gives Nigeria as a country the right to sit up very straight at International meetings but when you haven’t paid up your subscriptions you can’t necessarily do so”.
Mrs Adeosun said the Federal Executive Council had directed the Committee to look into its recommendations with a view of reconciling conflicting financial figures meant to be paid as subscription fees by Nigeria.
“It was discussed at the FEC that there were commitments made to some International Organisations by the former Government which were not cash backed”.
“The subscription is $70m per annum and these are lots and lots of arrears”.
Adeosun added that the Committee will be given two weeks to review the recommendations after which a final decision will be taken by the FEC.
“So the directive of the council was that they should go and reconcile those figures and come back to the council and have a payment plan for those figures, to avoid Nigeria being embarrassed internationally”.
The Minister noted that the procedures of committing Nigeria to any form of subscription or donations to International Organisations will be tightened.
“Circulars need to be issued on who can commit Nigeria, because it was discovered that only a Director or an Ambassador who attended the meeting can commit subscription on behalf of Nigeria, so that International Organisations don’t begin to chase us for money”.
