By Augustine Aminu
The Budget Office of the Federation has clarified that no funds appropriated for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PEAC/PFIPC) were ever spent, insisting that Nigeria’s public finance control system prevented the appropriation from becoming public expenditure.
In a statement issued on Friday, Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, said the controversy surrounding the council was based on a misunderstanding of the difference between budget appropriation and actual government spending.
According to him, although the National Assembly appropriated ₦1.302 billion for PEAC/PFIPC in the 2026 Appropriation Act, the legal and administrative requirements needed to convert the allocation into expenditure were never fulfilled.
Yakubu explained that public funds can only be spent after several statutory conditions have been met, including financial clearance, lawful recruitment, payroll enrolment, treasury warranting, cash backing and procurement approvals for capital projects.
He stated that none of these conditions was satisfied in the case of PEAC/PFIPC, stressing that no money left the Federal Government Treasury.
The Budget Office noted that while the council submitted a personnel estimate of about ₦3.85 billion, it independently reviewed the request using approved staffing levels and government salary structures, reducing the recommended personnel allocation to ₦802.98 million, which was eventually included in the Executive Budget and approved by the National Assembly.
Yakubu, however, said the Budget Office did not issue the mandatory Financial Clearance required to commence recruitment because the necessary legal and regulatory conditions had not been completed.
He added that after the 2026 Appropriation Act received presidential assent on March 31, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had yet to confirm compliance with the approved public service remuneration framework.
According to the statement, this meant there was no lawful recruitment, no payroll enrolment and no salary payments.
On the ₦200 million overhead allocation, the Budget Office explained that overhead funds are released monthly only after treasury warrants and cash backing have been approved.
It disclosed that when questions later emerged over the legal status of the council, 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, effectively preventing any release of funds.
The statement also addressed the ₦300 million capital allocation, explaining that no procurement process reached the approval stage required under the Public Procurement Act.
It said no Ministerial Tenders Board approval, Bureau of Public Procurement Certificate of No Objection, treasury warrant or cash backing was granted, meaning the capital allocation never became expenditure.
Yakubu maintained that Nigeria’s expenditure control system functioned exactly as intended by stopping payments before they could occur.
“The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the money from going,” he said.
The Budget Office concluded that there was no personnel expenditure to recover because no salaries were paid, no overhead funds were released and no capital projects commenced.
It reaffirmed its commitment to cooperating with any lawful investigation by providing all relevant records, computations and official correspondence to establish the facts surrounding the PEAC/PFIPC appropriation.
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