How Adeyemi’s PFIPC Entered 2026 Appropriation, by Budget Office DG

•Tells Reps panel no funds were ever spent on controversial agency

The Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, yesterday  explained to the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the establishment and budgetary provisions of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PEAC/PFIPC) how the controversial council found its way into the 2026 federal budget, insisting that the Budget Office neither created the body nor approved its establishment but merely cost its personnel requirement based on official government instruments issued by relevant authorities.

Yakubu, however, maintained that although the National Assembly appropriated N1,302,978,783 for the council, not one kobo was released or spent, stressing that the statutory conditions required before public funds could be disbursed were never met.

Presenting the Budget Office’s position before the committee, the Director-General traced the council’s institutional origins to the Presidential Economic Advisory Council inaugurated by former President Muhammadu Buhari on October 9, 2019.

 He said before the Budget Office became involved, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation had assigned the council an administrative budget code, giving it an identity within the Federal Government’s budget architecture.

According to him, without the code, a spending body cannot be recognised for budgeting, appropriated as a spending unit or subsequently participate in the expenditure process.

Yakubu further disclosed that an authorised establishment and a recruitment waiver had already been issued by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, while the relevant public service salary structure was also in place before the council sought budgetary provision.

He stressed that those approvals predated and were separate from the council’s request for funding.

“The council entered the budget through official instruments. Its institutional origins lay in the Presidential Economic Advisory Council inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, on 9 October 2019.

 “The Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation had assigned the administrative budget code that gave the Council its identity within the Federal Government’s budget architecture.

“Without that code, a spending body cannot be recognised for budgeting, appropriated as a spending unit, or subsequently participate in the expenditure process. An authorised establishment and a recruitment waiver had also been issued by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. The relevant public-service salary structure existed. These instruments predated and stood apart from the Council’s later request for budgetary provision.

 “The Budget Office did not create the Council. It did not assign the code. It did not approve the establishment. It did not grant the recruitment waiver. It acted on documents issued through recognised Government channels and performed the task for which it is responsible: it measured the fiscal consequence of those approvals.”

Yakubu disclosed that although the council requested N3,850,935,000 as personnel cost, the Budget Office rejected the figure because it was unsupported and instead, carried out an independent computation using only the authorised establishment, approved recruitment waiver, applicable public service salary structure and the established personnel-cost methodology.

“The calculation produced N802,978,783.00. That was the amount placed in the Executive Budget proposal and later appropriated. It was not a compromise with the council. It was not a reduced version of the council’s request. It was an independent fiscal determination.”

The Budget Office boss said much of the public debate surrounding the controversy had wrongly assumed that appropriation automatically translated into expenditure.

“The public argument has often begun at the wrong point. The National Assembly appropriated funds for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, known as PEAC/PFIPC. That fact is not in dispute. The question is what happened next. Nothing did.”

He explained that an appropriation only authorises expenditure in law and does not amount to payment.

“An appropriation is authority in law to make provision for an expenditure. It is not a cheque. It is not a warrant. It is not cash released from the Treasury. Before money can move, other conditions must be met. Different institutions must act. Each must complete its own part. If one condition fails, the chain stops.

“That is what happened here.”

According to Yakubu, Nigeria’s public finance system deliberately divides responsibility among different government institutions to prevent a single office from creating an agency, recruiting staff, releasing money and spending appropriated funds.

He explained that while the Office of the Head of the Civil Service handles establishment and recruitment approvals, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission regulates remuneration, the Budget Office assesses fiscal implications and issues Financial Clearance where conditions are met, while the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation control warrants, releases, cash backing and payment. Procurement authorities, he added, supervise capital expenditure.

“The strength of the system lies in this division of labour. No single approval is enough. No single office can carry an appropriation from the statute book into a bank account. In the case of PEAC/PFIPC, the chain never opened.”

Yakubu identified Financial Clearance as the critical legal gateway before recruitment and salary payments can commence.

 “Financial Clearance is the gate through which a personnel provision must pass before recruitment and salary expenditure can begin. It is not a courtesy letter. It is the formal confirmation that the fiscal and regulatory conditions for recruitment have been met.”

He noted that until Financial Clearance is issued, a personnel provision remains only a figure in the budget and cannot create employees, place anyone on the payroll or generate salary payments.

 The Director-General said the Budget Office never issued Financial Clearance because the statutory requirements were incomplete.

 He explained that although the Budget Office could prepare personnel cost estimates before the Appropriation Bill became law, it could not issue final Financial Clearance until after presidential assent, which was granted on March 31, 2026.

 Even after assent, he said, another condition remained outstanding because the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had not confirmed that the proposed staffing and remuneration arrangements complied with the approved public service compensation framework.

 “The Budget Office could still estimate personnel cost from the instruments available to it. It could not lawfully open the gate to recruitment while that regulatory confirmation remained outstanding.

 “The result followed at once. There was no Financial Clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment.”

 Yakubu told lawmakers that the personnel allocation of N802,978,783, representing 61.63 per cent of the council’s total appropriation, never became available to the council.

He explained that personnel appropriations are never paid to agencies as lump sums but are released monthly as salaries directly into the accounts of verified employees on the Federal Government payroll.

 “Even in a lawful and fully completed process, PEAC/ PFIPC would not have received N802,978,783.00 in one payment. The money would have moved over twelve months to individual employees whose appointments, identities and payroll records had been verified.”

 He stressed that because no Financial Clearance was issued, no recruitment took place, no payroll was created and no salaries became due.

“Not one kobo of the personnel provision could lawfully have been drawn. Not one kobo was drawn. There is no personnel expenditure to recover because there was no personnel expenditure.”

On the N200 million overhead allocation, Yakubu said it never became a cash entitlement because overhead releases are made monthly only after treasury warrants and cash backing.

 He disclosed that after questions arose over the legal status of the council in June 2026, the Budget Office formally instructed the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to withhold every payment instrument relating to the council.

“The figure in the Appropriation Act therefore remained a provision in law. It did not become money placed at the disposal of the council.”

He also dismissed suggestions that the N300 million capital allocation resulted in expenditure, explaining that the provision merely formed part of the standard start-up allocation usually made for new or reactivated public bodies.

According to him, no procurement process reached the stage where expenditure could arise as there was no procurement approval, no Certificate of No Objection from the Bureau of Public Procurement, no warrant and no treasury cash backing.

 “The capital provision remained what Parliament had enacted: an appropriation subject to law. It never became capital expenditure.”

 Summing up the Budget Office’s defence, Yakubu said all the safeguards built into Nigeria’s public finance system functioned as intended.

“The personnel provision stopped at Financial Clearance. The overhead provision stopped before warranting and cash backing. The capital provision stopped before procurement approval and release.

“Each part met a different safeguard. Each safeguard held.”

He added that payroll was never activated, overhead never became a cash release, procurement never commenced and treasury instruments never matured into payment.

 “The consequence was not theoretical. It can be measured. The N802,978,783.00 personnel provision never became payroll expenditure. The N200,000,000.00 overhead provision never became a cash entitlement. The N300,000,000.00 capital provision never became procurement or capital expenditure.

 “The legal path from appropriation to expenditure was broken at every material point.”

 Yakubu said the controversy underscored why appropriation should never be confused with expenditure, arguing that Parliament may authorise spending but public money only moves after every institution in the statutory chain has completed its responsibilities.

 “The system is designed this way because public finance cannot rest on trust alone. It rests on proof, sequence and divided authority.”

 Describing the outcome as evidence that government controls worked, he said: “In the PEAC/PFIPC case, that sequence did not fail. It stopped the expenditure before it began.

 “What has been described in some quarters as institutional weakness is better understood as institutional resilience. The controls did not discover a loss after the event. They prevented the event. They did not chase money after it had gone. They kept it from moving.”

 He concluded: “The conclusion is firm. Not one kobo of the personnel provision could lawfully have been drawn, and not one kobo was drawn. The overhead provision never matured into a lawful cash release. The capital provision never matured into procurement or expenditure. The conditions required for spending were not met and were not close to being met.

 “There is therefore no personnel expenditure to recover. The money never moved because the controls held.”

 Yakubu assured the committee that the Budget Office would continue to cooperate with the investigation by providing “the records, computations, correspondence and system evidence required to establish the facts,” adding that public confidence was best served by “a clear account of what the law required, what the institutions did and why no unlawful expenditure arose.”

 Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Hon Yusuf Gagdi, vowed the commitment of the committee to follow the investigation to a logical conclusion.

He said the probe will resume on Monday with the Accountant General among others being expected.