The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, has defended the agency's role in the controversial N1.32 billion budgetary allocation to the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), insisting that no public funds were released or spent despite the provision contained in the 2026 Appropriation Act.
Yakubu made the clarification on Friday while appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the alleged unlawful establishment and funding of the council.
He told lawmakers that the Budget Office neither created the PFIPC nor approved its establishment, recruitment, or salary structure, stressing that its responsibility was limited to evaluating the fiscal implications of approvals issued by the relevant government authorities.
"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," Yakubu said.
The Budget Office boss explained that although the council initially requested N3.8 billion for personnel costs, the agency rejected the estimate and carried out its own independent assessment based on the approved establishment and the applicable public service salary structure.
According to him, the review produced a significantly lower personnel estimate of **N802,978,783**, which formed the Budget Office's fiscal 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 N802,978,783. This was not a concession to the council. It was the Budget Office's own fiscal proposal," he explained.
Yakubu, however, emphasized that the personnel allocation never translated into actual expenditure because the mandatory financial clearance required before recruitment and salary payments was never granted.
He explained that financial clearance is the final statutory approval needed before any agency can recruit staff, enroll employees on the government payroll, or commence salary payments.
"There was therefore no financial clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment," he stated.
He further noted that although personnel costs accounted for about 61.63 per cent of the council's total appropriation, not a single naira was accessed.
"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 N200 million overhead allocation remained untouched because treasury warrants and cash backing were never issued.
Similarly, he said the N300 million capital allocation never progressed beyond the appropriation stage because none of the statutory procurement procedures required under the 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," he said.
He maintained that Nigeria's financial control system functioned exactly as intended by preventing unauthorized expenditure before it could occur.
"The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the expenditure before it began," Yakubu told the committee.
During the hearing, committee members questioned the legal basis for making budgetary provisions for the PFIPC after examining what they described as a purported Act establishing the council.A member of the committee, Rep. Abubakar Fulata, argued that the document submitted by the Budget Office lacked a gazette number, the signature of the Clerk of the National Assembly, and evidence of presidential assent, rendering it invalid as an 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," Fulata said.
He also criticized government agencies for failing to verify the authenticity of the document before relying on it.
Responding, Yakubu maintained that the Budget Office acted strictly on official establishment approvals, recruitment waivers, and salary directives issued by the appropriate statutory authorities.
He added that although the council submitted a request for personnel funding, such correspondence played no role in the Budget Office's computation.
"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.
Chairman of the Ad-Hoc Committee, Rep. Yusuf Gagdi, defended the Budget Office, saying the evidence before the panel showed the agency complied with all the requirements necessary before making the budgetary provision.
According to him, investigations have established that the documents relied upon by several government 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," Gagdi stated.
He said the committee's focus had now shifted to determining how the 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.
Gagdi disclosed that the Accountant-General of the Federation is scheduled to appear before the committee on Monday to explain how the PFIPC obtained its budget code, while other relevant agencies will also testify 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 committee chairman said.
