Budget Office: PFIPC Originated During Buhari’s Administration

The Federation’s Budget Office has explained how the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) recently disowned by the Presidency and now being investigated by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) got a budgetary allocation in 2026.

Tanimu Yakubu, Director-General of the Budget Office, said the body had its institutional origin in the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC) established under the administration of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Yakubu made the clarification in a statement issued after he appeared before members of the House of Representatives in Abuja.

Buhari inaugurated the PEAC on October 9, 2019, and by the time preparations for the 2026 budget were underway, official instruments relating to the body had already been issued by relevant government institutions, he said.

Yakubu said the Budget Office only acted on documents provided by other authorized government institutions.

“PEAC/PFIPC did not get into the 2026 Budget just because it asked for money,” he said. The Council is a spinoff of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council that was inaugurated during the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari on October 9, 2019. By the time the preparation of the 2026 Budget had started, the institutions responsible for this function had already issued the official instruments.

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The PFIPC was allocated an administrative code by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. An approved establishment and a recruitment waiver had been approved by the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. There was also the pertinent public-service salary structure. The instruments were not from the Budget Office. They came upon it.

“The Budget Office did not generate the Council. It did not give its code. It did not approve of its formation. It did not give its waiver of recruitment. It received official instruments and did what the law required of it: it measured their fiscal impact.”

Personnel Request Slashed From ₦3.85 Billion To ₦802.9 Million
The Budget Office boss said the council had originally sent a personnel estimate of ₦3.85 billion for the 2026 fiscal year.

The office disputed that figure, he said, and determined the personnel requirement on its own, based on the approved public-service salary framework, recruitment waiver and the approved staffing structure.

The exercise, he said, reduced the proposed personnel cost to ₦802.98 million.

“Council later submitted personnel estimate of ₦3,850,935,000.00. The estimate was not the basis for the Budget Office’s recommendation. The Budget Office disregarded this and did its own calculation, using only the authorized establishment, the approved recruitment waiver, the applicable public-service salary structure and the existing costing methodology.

“The calculation was ₦802,978,783.00. This was no concession to the Council. That was the Budget Office’s own fiscal judgment. It was the sum contained in the Executive Budget proposal and thereafter appropriated,” Yakubu said.

Yakubu said that the body could not access the personnel allocation because the promoter, Adeyemi Adeniyi, did not get the required Financial Clearance.

Before recruitment, payroll enrolment or salary payments could begin, such clearance was necessary, he explained.

“Financial Clearance is the stage at which a personnel provision can start to acquire legal force as expenditure. It is not a standard letter. It is the confirmation that the conditions fiscal and regulatory for recruitment have been met. It is in the budget until it is issued. It does not generate staff. It does not open payroll. It does not generate wage. “The Budget Office did not issue a Financial Clearance for PEAC/PFIPC because the conditions were incomplete,” he said.

Yakubu said the 2026 Appropriation Bill did not become law until presidential assent on March 31, 2026, which means final financial clearance could not have been issued before then.

He said another condition was still yet to be cleared after assent as the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had not confirmed that the proposed staffing and remuneration structure was in line with the approved public-service structure.

The Budget Office could figure out the cost. It could not open the gate. Therefore no Financial Clearance was there. No lawful recruitment. There was no registration in the payroll. There was no pay,” he added.

The Director-General, Budget Office, said the personnel provision of ₦802.98 million accounted for 61.63 percent of the council’s total appropriation of ₦1.303 billion.

He dismissed suggestions that the entire personnel allocation could have been directly handed over to the body as a lump sum.

“The personnel provision was N802,978,783.00. It accounted for 61.63 per cent of the total appropriation of ₦1,302,978,783.00. It has sometimes been put as if the Council could have got the whole of the sum and spent it as they pleased. “That description is not accurate,” he said.

Yakubu said Personnel appropriations are normally paid monthly to verified employees through the Federal Government payroll system and are not transferred wholesale to an agency.

“The institution does not receive the annual personnel provision as cash under its control, he added. In a lawful process the Council would not have received ₦802,978,783.00 in one installment. The money would have been distributed over twelve months to individual employees.

“That process never got underway. Financial Clearance was not issued. There was no recruitment. No payroll entry was generated. No salary was due. Not one kobo of the personnel provision could have been legally paid. Not a kobo was drawn. “There is no personnel expenditure to recover because there was no personnel expenditure.”