By Ogbeni Olawale Dawodu
The Budget Office of the Federation told the House of Representatives on Friday that the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) did not receive any of the N1.32 billion allocated to it in the 2026 Appropriation Act, as the council failed to meet the legal conditions required for public spending.
Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, gave the clarification while appearing before the House Ad-Hoc Committee probing the alleged unlawful establishment and funding of the PFIPC — a body increasingly suspected of never having been legally created by the Federal Government.
Yakubu distanced his office from the council’s creation, insisting its role was limited to assessing the fiscal implications of approvals forwarded by relevant government authorities. He said the Budget Office rejected the council’s request for N3.8 billion in personnel costs and instead ran its own independent assessment based on approved staff strength and the public service salary structure, arriving at a lower figure.
“The Budget Office did not create the council. It did not assign its budget code. It did not approve its establishment, recruitment waiver or salaries,” Yakubu said. “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.”
He explained that the personnel allocation, though it made up about 61.63 per cent of the council’s total budget, was never disbursed because his office withheld the financial clearance needed before recruitment, payroll enrolment and salary payment could occur.
“There was therefore no financial clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment,” he said. “Not one naira of the personnel provision has been drawn. There is no personnel expenditure to recover because no expenditure ever occurred.”
Yakubu added that the N200 million overhead allocation was never accessed for lack of treasury warrants and cash backing, while the N300 million capital vote remained unspent as the procurement process never advanced to a stage permitting disbursement.
“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 said. “The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the expenditure before it began.”
Committee member Rep. Abubakar Fulata challenged the legal basis on which provisions were made for the council, arguing that the purported Act establishing the PFIPC lacked a gazette number, the signature of the Clerk to the National Assembly, and presidential assent — and faulted agencies for failing to verify the document before acting on it.
“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,” Fulata said.
Yakubu maintained that the Budget Office relied solely on official establishment approvals, recruitment waivers and directives from the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission in computing personnel costs, and did not draw on the disputed document.
Committee Chairman, Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, said evidence before the panel showed the Budget Office had acted on documents presented by appropriate government institutions, which were only later found to be forged. He said the probe had now shifted from the Budget Office to how the forged documents entered official government channels.
“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,” Gagdi said, adding that the Accountant-General of the Federation is expected to appear before the committee on Monday to explain how the council obtained its budget code.
The ad-hoc committee was set up following allegations that the PFIPC appeared in official government records and the 2026 Appropriation Act despite unresolved questions over its legal status. The panel is expected to determine how the council gained official recognition, identify those responsible, and recommend safeguards against a recurrence.
