President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday directed the commissioning of a comprehensive forensic investigation into the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council scandal.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting, presided over by Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, the council’s first sitting since June 29.

Oyedele said, “That is to do with the fake agency that is called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. Mr President gave us the updates about the work the ICPC has done, and as a result of that, the council has directed that we commission a forensic investigation that will look into our processes, our procedures, internal control weaknesses that allow some of these things to happen, because the findings discovered that we indeed have additional fake agencies.

“What is important is to establish what went wrong, how it can be prevented, and going forward, how we can make our systems stronger. Systems are built when you find problems, you deal with them decisively, and that’s exactly what Mr President and council have directed today.”

The former tax reform tsar said the Attorney-General of the Federation and his own office had been directed to work with other relevant agencies to address the matter holistically, spanning its administrative, accounting and governance dimensions.

He disclosed that the President had specifically ordered the review to extend to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, warning that fake agencies likely mean fake employees somewhere within the federal payroll.

“Mr President directed that the review should extend to IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees. In a country where you would have seen Mr President doing everything to ensure we enhance payroll, salaries and wages, we can’t afford to have fake people hanging around. It undermines our ability to pay our people well, who are doing the hard work,” he said.

He disclosed that N9.495tn in subsidy savings and incremental revenue had gone into incremental payment of salaries and allowances to civil servants, a figure he said exceeded the actual savings that accrued to the Federal Government from the subsidy removal.

Oyedele explained, “So we don’t want to be further constrained by fake agencies and fake personnel. This is something we take very seriously, and the Nigerian people will get updates as we progress.

“It’s collective responsibility. Something went wrong. Someone managed, with whatever people they colluded with, to create a fake agency that had an office within the institution of the Federal Government.

“They managed to register and obtain an administrative code as well as a TSA code. The only thing that didn’t happen was we didn’t pay any money to those accounts. But it’s gone too far to even get to that level. Now the idea is we want to find out what went wrong and strengthen the system.”

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, provided further context on the ICPC’s findings, confirming that the commission’s report identified more than the initially known fake council.

“The President was informed that it is not just about the so-called Presidential Foreign Promotion Council and the fake DG that was there, but that there were at least two additional fake agencies that were in that process.

“So what the President said was that this is not just about accounting; it is also about the administrative looseness that was discovered by the ICPC,” Idris said.

He explained that the President had directed the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister to jointly examine both the administrative and accounting systems to identify the lapses that enabled the scandal, and to engage professional audit firms for a forensic, total evaluation of the system.

“So that we have a forensic, total evaluation of this system, with a view to plugging this once and for all, so we don’t have this national embarrassment again,” he said.

Idris cautioned that the scandal likely predates the current administration, saying, “I want you to know that this didn’t just happen now. It is possible that this dates back longer than when the President was in office.”

“The President is not just looking at this; he is looking at the possibility that this may also have occurred elsewhere, and trying to find a solution that will block this from recurring going forward,” he added.

Earlier in his briefing, Oyedele disclosed that council approved the signing of Double Taxation Avoidance Treaties between Nigeria and Ghana, Nigeria and Tanzania, and Nigeria and Switzerland.

“The overall objective of these treaties is to ensure that Nigeria can expand the opportunities available to our businesses to invest in other countries, and also for us to attract investment from those countries.

“We’re hoping that Nigeria can develop a very robust tax treaty network to compete with leading countries in Africa, like South Africa, which has over 60. But we’re making good progress,” he said.

Oyedele also disclosed that the council approved a $1.25bn financing facility from the International Development Association and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in support of Nigeria’s Actions for Investment and Job Acceleration development policy financing.

“This is a concessional facility with repayments of about 30 years, which we are going to dedicate to helping accelerate job creation. If we have any priority as a country, this clearly has to be one of them,” he stated. (The PUNCH)

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