Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Dr. Yakubu Tanimu, on Friday formally confirmed that the phantom Council entered the budget through official instrument, which has its institutional origins in the Presidential Economic Advisory Council inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari on 9 October 2019.

This is coming on the heels of interrogation of officials of relevant Standing Committees of the Senate and House of Representatives by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

The National Assembly personnel were invited to ascertain their oversight roles in scrutinising the budget process for the period under review.

Responding to the Ad-hoc Committee’s inquiry, Mr. Tanimu gave the insight during the resumed investigative hearing into the circumstances surrounding the inclusion of budgetary provisions for the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Council (PFIPC/PFIC), headed by the self-acclaimed Director General, Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi.

He added that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (oAGF) had assigned the administrative budget code that gave the Council its identity within the Federal Government’s budget architecture.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee, Hon. Yusuf Gagdi who affirmed that the controversial Appropriation was passed by the National Assembly, however, disclosed that the Chairmen of relevant Standing Committees of the House of Representatives overseeing the Presidency budget will be invited for scrutiny.

While speaking, Mr. Yakubu disclosed that the sum of N3.8 billion requested for personnel cost was pruned to N802.98 million by the Budget Office in line with the approved establishment and applicable public service salary structure.

He maintained that the issue was never whether Parliament appropriated funds. It was whether the law permitted those funds to become expenditure. The law required financial clearance, lawful recruitment, payroll or enrolment, treasury warranting, cash backing, and procurement approvals. Those conditions never arose.

“The appropriation, therefore, remained an appropriation. It never became expenditure. The public record should reflect the distinction. The public record should reflect that distinction, because if the distinction upon which the integrity of the expenditure control system rests.”

Mr. Yakubu, who affirmed that “the National Assembly appropriated funds for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” as a matter of record, however argued that “an appropriation is not expenditure; it is only the beginning of a legal process. Public money does not move because a figure appears in an Appropriation Act. It moves only when the law permits it to move, because the two lie a chain of controls between the two. Each link belongs to a different institution. Each must hold before the next can open.

“The Budget Office is one part of that chain. The office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation approves establishment and recruitment. The National Salaries, Incomes, and Wages Commission regulates remuneration. The Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation control warrants release cash backing and payment. The procurement authorities govern capital spending. No one institution can carry money from appropriation to expenditure. That is the safeguard. In the case of PEAC/PFIPC, the safeguard that safeguard actually held.

“How the council entered the budget. The council did not enter the 2026 budget merely because it asked for funds. The Council had its origin in the presidential economic advisory council, inaugurated during the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR.

“By the time preparation of the 2026 budget began, official instruments had already been issued by the institutions charged with those functions, the office of the Accountant General of the Federation had assigned an administrative code. The office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation had approved the authorized establishment and a recruitment waiver. The applicable public service salary structure also existed. Those instruments did not come from the Budget Office; they came to it.

“The Budget Office did not create the Council; it did not assign its 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.

“The Council later submitted a personnel estimate of N3.8 billion. That estimate did not form the basis of the Budget Office’s recommendation. The Budget Office disregarded it and made an independent calculation, only using the authorized establishment, the approved recruitment waiver, the applicable establishment, the applicable public service salary structure, and the extent costing methodology.

“That calculation produced N802,978,783. This was not a concession to the Council; it was the Budget Office’s own fiscal proposal, a letter appropriated. Financial clearance was the closed gate. Financial clearance is the point at which a personnel provision may begin to acquire legal force as expenditure. It is not a routine letter. It is a confirmation that the fiscal and regulatory conditions for recruitment have been made. Until it is issued, the figure remains in the budget. It does not create staff, it does not open payroll, it does not produce salary.

“The Budget Office did not issue financial clearance for the Council because the conditions were incomplete. The 2026 Appropriation bill did not become law until presidential assent on 31 March 2026. Before that date, the Budget Office could cost the proposal. It could not grant final financial clearance against a bill that had not yet become law.

“After assent, a further condition remained outstanding: the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had not confirmed that the proposed staffing and remuneration arrangements complied with its prescribed template and the approved public service compensation framework.

“The Budget Office could calculate the cost; it could not open the gate. There was therefore no financial clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment. The personnel provision was N802,978,783. It represented 61.63% of the total appropriation of N1,302,978 783.

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“It has sometimes been described as though the Council could have received the whole amount and spent it at will. The description is false. Personnel appropriations are not paid to agencies as lump sums. After every legal condition has been made, salaries are paid monthly, month by month. The money moves electronically into the designated bank accounts of verified employees enrolled on the federal government payroll.

“The institution does not receive the annual personnel provision as cash under its control. Even in a lawful process, the Council would not have received N802,978,783 in one payment. The money would have gone over 12 months to individual employees. The process never began. No financial clearance was issued. No recruitment took place. No payroll record was created. No salary 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. The overhead provision never became a right to cash. And only when the Treasury issues the required warrant and provide cash backing, the annual figure translated to N16.7 million a month during the period under review.

“The treasury generally released between 25% and 50% of monthly provision, the amount that might have become available therefore ranged between N4.2 million and N8.3 million a month. Even that depended on the cash position of government.

“Then the legal question changed the course of events. In June 2026, doubt arose about the status of the Council. The Budget Office formally notified the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to withhold every instrument that could support payment. That instruction closed the route to release. The N200 million remained a provision in law. It did not become money in the hands of the council. The capital provision never reached procurement. The capital provision was N300 million, representing 23.02 percent of the total appropriation.

“It was a standard start-up provision for new, reinstated or reactivated public bodies. It was meant for basic operational assets. It was not a cash award. Capital expenditure follows another chain. There must be a procurement plan. The appropriate ministerial tenders board must act. The Public Procurement Act must be obeyed. Where the threshold requests it, the Bureau of Public Procurement must issue a Certificate of No Objection.

“After that, the expenditure must still be warranted, released, and cash backed. None of these stages was completed. No procurement reached the point at which expenditure could arise. No ministerial tenders board approved a transaction. No Certificate of No Objection was issued. No warrant followed. No treasury cash backing followed. The capital provision remained where Parliament had placed it in the Appropriation Act. Subject to law, it never became capital expenditure.

“The system did not chase a loss; it prevented one. The three provisions tell one story. The personnel provision stopped a financial clearance. The overhead provision stopped being warranting and cash backing. The capital provision stopped before procurement approved and released. Each met a different control. Each control held. The Budget Office rejected an unsupported estimate and made its own calculation. It withheld financial clearance when the conditions were incomplete.

“When doubts arose about the legal status of the Council, it asked the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation to stop all payment instruments. The wider system then did what it was designed to do. Payroll was never activated. Overhead was never converted into an annual cash release, procurement did not commence. Treasury instruments did not mature into payment.

“The result was measurable. The 802,978,783 personnel provision never became payroll expenditure. The N200 million overhead prohibition never became a cash entitlement. The N300 million cash provision never became procurement or capital expenditure. The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the money from going.

“The broader lesson for all of us: this matter is larger than one Council and one appropriation. It shows why appropriation and expenditure must be kept apart in law and public understanding. Appropriation gives authority subject to conditions. Expenditure arises when those conditions have been met. The system divides power between public finance. The system divides power because public finance cannot rest on one office, one letter, or one decision. It rests on sequence, proof, and restraint. If the counts in the council’s case, the sequence did not fail; it stopped the expenditure before it began.

“What has been called weakness is better understood as resilience. The controls did not identify a loss after the event, they prevented the event. They did not pursue money after it had left the treasury. They kept it from moving. 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 lawful release. The capital provision never matured into procurement or expenditure. The conditions 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. The Budget Office of the Federation will continue to cooperate with every lawful inquiry and will provide the records, computations, correspondences, and system evidence required to establish the facts,” he assured.

In his intervention, a member of the Committee, Hon. Abubakar Fulata, noted that the document submitted by the Budget Office did not bear a gazette number, the signature of the Clerk to the National Assembly and evidence of presidential assent, insistes it was not a genuine 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.”

The lawmaker also faulted government agencies for failing to verify the authenticity of the document before acting on it.

While responding to the inquiry, Mr. Yakubu, insisted that the Agency acted strictly on official establishment approvals, recruitment waivers and salary structures issued by the appropriate statutory authorities.

He explained that although the phantom Council submitted a request seeking personnel funding, but stressed that such correspondence did not influence the Budget Office’s computations.

“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.”

While ruling, Hon. Gagdi disclosed that the Accountant-General of the Federation would appear before the committee on Monday to explain how the council obtained its budget code, while other agencies would also be questioned as the panel moves toward concluding its investigation.

“By the special grace of God, we will conclude our findings and finish by next week,” he assured. (Nigerian Tribune)

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