NASS Appropriated Funds For Fake Agency But No Kobo Was Released – Budget Office

The director-general of the Budget Office of the Federation, Dr Tanimu Yakubu, has said that the National Assembly appropriated funds for the controversial Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIP) but no money had been released to the ‘fake’ agency.

He traced the inclusion of the PFIPC in the 2026 Appropriation Act to official government records linked to the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) inaugurated under former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Yakubu disclosed this when he appeared before the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee, investigating the council at the National Assembly Complex in Abuja on Friday.

He emphasised that despite the appropriation of N1.302 billion for the council in the 2026 budget, not a single kobo was released, as the statutory conditions required for expenditure were never met.

Yakubu further explained that the council found its way into the budget, the Budget Office boss said the institutional origin of the PEAC dated back to October 9, 2019, when former President Buhari inaugurated the advisory body to provide economic policy advice to his administration.

He said before the Budget Office received a request for budgetary provision, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation had already assigned an administrative budget code to the council, while the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had issued an authorised establishment and recruitment waiver.

The director-general said those official instruments enabled the Budget Office to assess the fiscal implications of the request but did not amount to creating a new government agency.

“The Budget Office did not create the Council. It did not assign the code. It did not approve the establishment. It did not grant the recruitment waiver. It acted on documents issued through recognised government channels and performed the task for which it is responsible, which was to determine the fiscal consequence of those approvals,” Yakubu said.

He disclosed that although the council requested N3.85 billion as personnel cost, the Budget Office rejected the estimate and independently computed a personnel requirement of N802.98 million using the authorised establishment, approved recruitment waiver and applicable public service salary structure.

Yakubu also said the amount formed part of the Executive Budget proposal and was subsequently appropriated by the National Assembly.

He, however, stressed that appropriation alone did not entitle the council to receive public funds.

“An appropriation is authority in law to make provision for expenditure. It is not a cheque; it is not a warrant. It is not cash released from the Treasury,” he told lawmakers.

According to him, the Budget Office never issued the mandatory Financial Clearance required before recruitment, payroll enrolment and salary payments could commence because the necessary statutory conditions were not fulfilled.

He explained that after the 2026 Appropriation Bill received presidential assent, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had yet to certify the council’s proposed staffing and remuneration structure.

“There was no Financial Clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment,” he said.

Yakubu told the committee that personnel appropriations are paid directly to verified employees through the Federal Government payroll system rather than as lump sums to agencies.

“As a result, not one kobo of the personnel provision could lawfully have been drawn, and not one kobo was drawn,” he stated.

Yakubu also disclosed that the council never accessed its N200 million overhead allocation, noting that overhead releases require Treasury warrants and cash backing from the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.

According to him, once questions emerged over the legal status of the council in June 2026, the Budget Office formally notified the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant-General to withhold all payment instruments relating to the agency.

Yakubu added that the council’s N300 million capital allocation also remained untouched because no procurement process was initiated, no Ministerial Tenders Board approved any project, no Bureau of Public Procurement Certificate of No Objection was issued, and no Treasury warrant or cash backing followed.

“The legal path from appropriation to expenditure was broken at every material point,” he said.

Yakubu argued that rather than exposing weaknesses in Nigeria’s public finance system, the PFIPC episode demonstrated that existing financial safeguards worked as intended.

“What has been described in some quarters as institutional weakness is better understood as institutional resilience. The controls did not discover a loss after the event; they prevented the event. They kept the money from moving,” he added.

Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi (APC, Plateau) assured that lawmakers would carry out their assignment with due diligence to unravel the mystery surrounding the controversial agency.

The House committee is investigating how the PFIPC, which the Presidency has said was never established by the Federal Government, secured recognition across public institutions and was allocated N1.302 billion in the 2026 budget.

The investigation continues on Monday with the Accountant -General of the Federation and other heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).