The Budget Office of the Federation has told the House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PEAC/PFIPC) that none of the N1.3 billion appropriated for the council in the 2026 Appropriation Act was released or spent.
Appearing before the committee on Friday, the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, said public discourse had focused on the budgetary allocation rather than the constitutional and statutory processes required before government funds could be disbursed.
Yakubu explained that an appropriation only grants legal authority for possible expenditure and does not automatically translate into the release of public funds.
According to him, several regulatory approvals must be obtained before any agency can access budgeted allocations.
He clarified that the Budget Office neither established the council nor approved its recruitment, administrative structure or budget code, stressing that its role was limited to assessing the fiscal implications of proposals submitted by the appropriate government institutions.
The Budget Office boss disclosed that while the council initially proposed N3.85 billion as personnel costs, the agency rejected the estimate and independently recalculated the requirement at N802.98 million, using the approved staff establishment, recruitment waiver and the applicable public service salary structure.
He noted that the revised figure was subsequently incorporated into the Executive Budget proposal before being approved by the National Assembly.
However, Yakubu said the Budget Office never issued financial clearance for the personnel expenditure because key regulatory requirements were not fulfilled.
He identified one of the outstanding conditions as confirmation by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission that the proposed staffing structure and remuneration complied with existing government policies.
Without the required clearance, he said, no recruitment could legally take place, no staff member could be enrolled on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), and no salaries could be paid.
He further explained that the N802.98 million personnel allocation, representing about 61.6 per cent of the total appropriation, was never available to the council as cash.
According to him, personnel allocations are paid directly on a monthly basis into the bank accounts of verified federal employees through the government’s payroll system and not transferred as lump sums to ministries, departments or agencies.
“Not one kobo of the personnel provision could lawfully have been drawn. Not one kobo was drawn,” Yakubu told the lawmakers.
On the council’s N200 million overhead allocation, the Director-General said the amount never became eligible for release.
He explained that following concerns over the legal status of the council in June 2026, the Budget Office formally requested the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to suspend all payment processes relating to the council.
Yakubu also disclosed that the N300 million capital allocation remained untouched because none of the mandatory procurement procedures—including approvals by the Ministerial Tenders Board and, where necessary, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP)—had been completed before the expenditure process was halted.
He maintained that Nigeria’s public financial management controls functioned effectively by preventing any unlawful disbursement of funds.
According to him, the personnel allocation was stopped at the financial clearance stage, the overhead allocation was halted before warranting and cash backing, while the capital allocation did not progress beyond the procurement approval stage.
“The controls did not discover a loss after the event. They prevented the event,” Yakubu said, adding that there were no public funds to recover because no money was ever released.
The House Ad-hoc Committee is investigating issues surrounding the establishment, funding and operations of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
