N1.32bn allocation: No Kobo was released to PFIPC, Budget Office tells Reps

By Gift Chapi Odekina

Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, on Friday defended the agency’s role in the controversial budgetary allocation to the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), insisting that despite provisions made in the 2026 Appropriation Act, not a single kobo was released or spent because the statutory conditions for expenditure were never fulfilled.

Appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the alleged unlawful establishment and funding of the council, the DG maintained that the Budget Office neither created the council nor approved its establishment, recruitment or salaries.

He told lawmakers that the office merely carried out its constitutional responsibility of assessing the fiscal implications of approvals issued by other government institutions.

“The Budget Office did not create the council. It did not assign its budget code. It did not approve its establishment. It did not grant its recruitment waiver. It received official instruments and did what the law required of it. It measured their fiscal effect,” he said.

The DG explained that while the council requested N3.8 billion as personnel cost, the Budget Office rejected the estimate and independently calculated a much lower figure of N802.98 million based on the approved establishment and applicable public service salary structure.

“That estimate did not form the basis of the Budget Office’s recommendation. The Budget Office rejected it and made an independent calculation… That calculation produced N802,978,783. This was not a concession to the council. It was the Budget Office’s own fiscal proposal,” Yakubu said.

He stressed, however, that the personnel provision never translated into actual spending because the office withheld the mandatory financial clearance.
According to him, financial clearance is the final legal approval required before recruitment, payroll enrolment and salary payments can commence.

“There was therefore no financial clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment.”

He added that although the personnel provision represented about 61.63 per cent of the council’s total appropriation, no funds were ever accessed.

“Not one naira of the personnel provision has been drawn. There is no personnel expenditure to recover because no expenditure ever occurred,” he said.

The DG further explained that the N200 million overhead allocation also remained untouched because treasury warrants and cash backing were never issued.

Similarly, the N300 million capital allocation never progressed beyond the appropriation stage as none of the procurement requirements prescribed by law was completed.

“No procurement reached the point at which expenditure would arise. No Ministerial Tenders Board approved a transaction. No Certificate of No Objection was issued. No treasury warrant followed. No treasury cash-backing followed,” the DG said.

He maintained that the country’s financial control mechanisms functioned exactly as designed.
“The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the expenditure before it began,” he said.

During the hearing, members of the committee questioned the legal basis upon which budgetary provisions were made for the council after examining what they described as a purported Act establishing it.

A member of the Committee, Abubakar Fulata, noted that the document submitted by the Budget Office lacked a gazette number, the signature of the Clerk to the National Assembly and evidence of presidential assent, insisting it was not a genuine Act of Parliament.

“The purported Act is very clear. It is not genuine because it did not carry the gazette number, it did not have the signature of the Clerk of the National Assembly and it did not carry the signature of Mr. President,” he said.

The lawmaker also faulted government agencies for failing to verify the authenticity of the document before acting on it.

Responding, the Budget Office DG said the agency acted strictly on official establishment approvals, recruitment waivers and salary structures issued by the appropriate statutory authorities.
He explained that although the council submitted a request seeking personnel funding, such correspondence did not influence the Budget Office’s computations.

“We do not rely on any instrument to calculate personnel costs other than the establishment authorisation and the directives of the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission,” he said.

The committee chairman, Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, defended the Budget Office’s actions, saying the evidence before lawmakers showed the office acted on approvals issued by the relevant government agencies.

He said the investigation had already established that the documents relied upon by those agencies were later discovered to be forged.

“The question is whether the Budget Office allocated budget to this agency without the agency satisfying the requirements. The answer, based on the documents before us, is no. I repeat, no,” he said.
Gagdi noted that the investigation had shifted from the Budget Office to determining how forged documents found their way into official government processes.

“The agency satisfied all the requirements the Budget Office needed before allocating a budget. The issue now is whether those documents were genuine. That is what this committee is investigating,” he said.

He announced that the Accountant-General of the Federation would appear before the committee on Monday to explain how the council obtained its budget code, while other agencies would also be questioned as the panel moves toward concluding its investigation.
“By the special grace of God, we will conclude our findings and finish by next week,” the chairman said.