BREAKING: Tinubu Orders Forensic Probe Into Fake Agencies, IPPIS

President Bola Tinubu has ordered a forensic investigation into the processes, procedures, accounting systems and administrative controls that allowed the creation and operation of fake government agencies, including a review of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) to determine whether fake employees may also have been captured on the government payroll.

The directive followed a briefing on the investigation into the fake agency identified as the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents on decisions taken at Wednesday’s meeting of the Federal Executive Council.

Oyedele said the Council directed that a forensic investigation be commissioned to examine the processes and procedures involved, as well as internal control weaknesses that allowed the fake agency and other irregularities to occur.

He said his office would work with the Attorney-General of the Federation and other relevant government agencies and departments to address the matter holistically.

“There is the administrative part of it. There is the accounting part of it. But overall, there is the governance part of it,” Oyedele said.

According to him, President Tinubu specifically directed that the review should extend to IPPIS because the existence of fake agencies could raise concerns about the possibility of fake employees being included in the government payroll.

“If you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees,” the minister said, stressing that the federal government could not afford to have fictitious personnel on its payroll at a time when President Tinubu was taking steps to improve salaries and wages.

He said the presence of fake personnel on the payroll would undermine the government’s ability to pay genuine civil servants who were doing the work.

Oyedele also disclosed that N9.4 trillion to N9.5 trillion had gone into incremental payments of salaries and allowances to civil servants.

He made the disclosure while referring to a briefing held with the media on subsidy savings, incremental revenue, borrowing and how the funds were being spent.

According to him, the amount spent on incremental salary and allowance payments was much higher than the savings that accrued to the federal government.

He said the government therefore did not want to be further constrained by fake agencies and fake personnel.

“This is something we take very seriously,” he said, adding that Nigerians would receive updates as the investigation progresses.

Explaining the scope of the investigation, Oyedele said the federal government would work collectively with relevant institutions to identify what went wrong and strengthen the system.

Responding to a question on who he meant by “we” when discussing the fake agency and the investigation, the minister clarified that it referred to the federal government collectively.

He explained that something had gone wrong and that someone, allegedly working with people they colluded with, managed to create a fake agency that had an office within an institution of the federal government.

The individuals also managed to register the entity and obtain a trading code as well as a Treasury Single Account (TSA) code.

Oyedele, however, said that during the handover, no money had been paid into those accounts.

He said the objective of the investigation was to establish what went wrong and strengthen the system.

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, provided further details about the discovery, recalling that President Tinubu had referred the matter to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

According to Idris, the ICPC conducted its investigation and submitted a report to the President.

He said it was through the ICPC report that the President was informed that the matter went beyond the fake agency initially under investigation.

Idris said the report revealed that there were at least two additional fake agencies in the process.

He explained that the issue was not only about accounting but also involved administrative weaknesses within the government system.

The Information Minister said President Tinubu consequently directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance to work together to examine the defective system and the accounting system, including the lapses that occurred in relation to the finances.

He said the President directed that professional auditors be engaged to audit both the accounting and administrative aspects of the matter.

The objective, Idris said, was to obtain a forensic and comprehensive understanding of the system and identify the weaknesses that needed to be addressed.

He said the exercise was aimed at “plugging” the identified loopholes permanently so that the country would not experience what he described as another national embarrassment.

Idris also said the problem might not have started under the present administration.

According to him, it was possible that some of the issues dated back to a period before President Tinubu assumed office.

He said the President was therefore looking not only at the immediate case but also at the possibility that similar situations could have occurred elsewhere within government.

The broader objective, he said, was to find a solution that would prevent such practices from recurring.

When asked to identify the other fake agencies discovered by the ICPC and explain their consequences, the officials said they were unable to provide those details at the briefing.