The Budget Office of the Federation has revealed that it rejected a ₦3.8 billion personnel cost request submitted by the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), insisting the agency never received any public funds despite being listed in the 2026 budget.
The disclosure was made on Friday by the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, during an appearance before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the alleged unlawful establishment and funding of the PFIPC.
Yakubu explained that although the council requested ₦3.8 billion to cover personnel costs, the Budget Office found the estimate unacceptable and conducted its own independent assessment using the approved government salary structure.
According to him, the office arrived at a much lower figure of ₦802.98 million, which became its official recommendation.
“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 ₦802.98 million. This was not a concession to the council. It was the Budget Office’s own fiscal proposal,” Yakubu said.
Despite the allocation made in the 2026 Appropriation Act, Yakubu stressed that the council never accessed any government funds because it failed to meet the legal requirements needed before public money can be released.
He explained that the mandatory financial clearance required before recruitment, payroll enrolment and salary payments was never issued.
“There was therefore no financial clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment,” he told lawmakers.
According to the Budget Office boss, although personnel costs accounted for more than 61 percent of the council’s total budget, not a single naira was spent.
“Not one naira of the personnel provision has been drawn. There is no personnel expenditure to recover because no expenditure ever occurred,” he added.
Yakubu also disclosed that the council’s ₦200 million overhead allocation remained untouched because treasury warrants and cash backing were never issued.
Similarly, the ₦300 million capital allocation was never released because the statutory procurement procedures required under Nigerian law were not 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,” he explained.
The Director-General maintained that the incident demonstrated that Nigeria’s financial control system worked effectively by preventing illegal spending before it could occur.
“The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the expenditure before it began,” Yakubu said.
He also dismissed suggestions that the Budget Office was responsible for creating or approving the controversial agency.
According to him, the office neither established the PFIPC nor approved its recruitment, budget code or operations, insisting its responsibility was only to evaluate the financial implications of approvals received from 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 stated.
During the hearing, members of the House committee questioned the legal basis upon which the PFIPC was included in the national budget.
Committee member Abubakar Fulata argued that the document presented as the law establishing the council lacked important features of a valid Act of Parliament, including a gazette number, the signature of the Clerk of the National Assembly and presidential assent.
“The purported Act 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,” Fulata said.
Responding, Yakubu insisted that the Budget Office relied only on official establishment approvals, recruitment waivers and salary directives issued by the relevant government authorities when carrying out its duties.
House Committee Chairman Yusuf Gagdi defended the Budget Office, saying evidence before the committee showed the agency acted based on documents presented by competent government institutions.
He, however, revealed that investigations have since suggested those documents may have been 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,” Gagdi said.
According to him, the committee’s investigation is now focused on determining how the alleged forged documents found their way into official government processes.
He also announced that the Accountant-General of the Federation is expected to appear before the panel on Monday to explain how the PFIPC obtained its budget code, while other government agencies connected to the matter will also testify.
The House of Representatives set up the ad-hoc committee following allegations that the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council was created and funded using forged official documents.
The committee is expected to conclude its investigation and recommend appropriate actions after hearing from all relevant government agencies.
