The Federal Government has denied receiving any request from South Africa seeking reimbursement for costs incurred in repatriating Nigerians and other migrants from the country.
The clarification follows a disclosure by South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs, which told Parliament on Tuesday that it had written to Nigeria, Malawi, and Ethiopia requesting a refund of part of the R292.77 million (about $18 million) spent on accommodating and transporting deportees and voluntary returnees.
Reacting to the development, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kimiebi Ebienfa, said no such document has been received by the Nigerian government.
He said: “It is not true, we have not received any document to that effect.”
Ebienfa also said Nigeria is yet to get a response from South Africa regarding its own compensation request for Nigerians who were forced to leave the country.
Corroborating his position, Nigeria’s Consul General in South Africa, Ninikanwa Okey-Uche, said no reimbursement demand had been communicated to the Nigerian mission in Pretoria.
South Africa’s Side of the Story
Home Affairs Director-General Tommy Makhode had earlier told the Portfolio Committee on Home Affairs that the department spent R292 million on the repatriation exercise, far exceeding its R60 million budget allocation for deportations this year.
He described the expenditure as unforeseen and unavoidable, adding that it amounted to an unfunded mandate since repatriations were not captured in the country’s existing legislative framework.
According to him, the department had written to the governments of Malawi and Ethiopia, as well as the Nigerian mission, through the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO), to request reimbursement.
“We have also written to the governments of Malawi, and, of course, the embassies of Nigeria and Ethiopia to request for reimbursements of these costs through the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, DIRCO. We are expecting responses from those governments,” Makhode said.
He explained that the bulk of the spending went into hiring buses to transport migrants, running temporary repatriation centres, and paying staff overtime. He added that some municipalities and government departments that assisted with the operation are also seeking reimbursement from Home Affairs.
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