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Budget Office breaks silence on controversial N1.3bn PEAC/PFIPC allocation
The Budget Office of the Federation has mounted a robust defence of the controversial N1.3bn appropriations for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council/Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PEAC/PFIPC), insisting that despite the National Assembly’s approval, no public funds were ever released or spent.
The clarification comes amid sustained public scrutiny over the council’s legal status and concerns about transparency in government spending, with the Budget Office arguing that the controversy stems from a widespread misunderstanding of how Nigeria’s public finance system operates.
In a detailed statement issued on Friday, the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, maintained that the multi-layered safeguards built into Nigeria’s budgeting and expenditure process effectively prevented any disbursement to the council.
According to him, while the National Assembly legally appropriated funds for PEAC/PFIPC, the appropriation never translated into actual expenditure because mandatory statutory requirements were never fulfilled.
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At the centre of the Budget Office’s defence is the distinction between legislative approval and the actual release of government funds. Yakubu argued that public discourse had wrongly equated appropriation with expenditure, stressing that an appropriation merely authorises potential spending and does not automatically trigger the release of public money.
“An appropriation is authority in law to make provision for an expenditure. It is not a cheque. It is not a warrant. It is not cash released from the Treasury. Before money can move, other conditions must be met,” he explained. He added that Nigeria’s public financial management framework intentionally distributes approval powers across different institutions to prevent abuse and ensure that no single agency can independently authorise spending.
“The strength of the system lies in this division of labour. No single approval is enough. No single office can carry an appropriation from the statute book into a bank account.”
Why the Personnel Budget Never Materialised** One of the most contentious aspects of the controversy concerns the personnel allocation. Yakubu disclosed that PEAC/PFIPC initially requested N3.85 billion for personnel costs.
However, the Budget Office rejected the proposal and independently recalculated the staffing requirement using approved salary structures, staffing levels and government remuneration guidelines.
That exercise, he said, produced a personnel estimate of N802.98 million, which was eventually included in the Executive Budget proposal and later approved by the National Assembly.
“The calculation produced N802,978,783.00. That was the amount placed in the Executive Budget proposal and later appropriated. It was not a compromise with the Council. It was not a reduced version of the Council’s request. It was an independent fiscal determination.”
Despite the appropriation, the Budget Office said the funds remained inaccessible because Financial Clearance—the statutory authorisation required before recruitment, payroll enrolment and salary payments—was never issued.
According to Yakubu, the Appropriation Act only became law after presidential assent on March 31, 2026, while compliance verification by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission had not been completed. “The Budget Office did not issue Financial Clearance for PEAC/PFIPC because the required conditions were incomplete.”
He maintained that without Financial Clearance, recruitment could not lawfully commence. “There was no Financial Clearance. There was no lawful recruitment. There was no payroll enrolment. There was no salary payment.” He insisted that the personnel allocation remained entirely untouched.
“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 Budget Office also rejected claims that the council had access to its N200 million overhead allocation.
Yakubu disclosed that after questions emerged regarding PEAC/PFIPC’s legal status in June 2026, the Budget Office directed both the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation to halt every administrative process that could have resulted in payment.
As a result, he said, the allocation remained only on paper. “
The figure in the Appropriation Act therefore remained a provision in law. It did not become money placed at the disposal of the Council.”
Similarly, the N300 million capital allocation never advanced beyond the planning stage. According to the Budget Office, none of the mandatory procurement procedures prescribed under the Public Procurement Act—including Ministerial Tenders Board approval, issuance of a Certificate of No Objection, warranting or Treasury cash backing—was completed.
Yakubu argued that the PEAC/PFIPC controversy should not be viewed as evidence of institutional failure but rather as proof that Nigeria’s financial control mechanisms functioned as intended. According to him, separate layers of approval prevented expenditure at different stages of the process.
“The personnel provision stopped at Financial Clearance. The overhead provision stopped before warranting and cash backing. The capital provision stopped before procurement approval and release. Each part met a different safeguard. Each safeguard held.”
He added that the safeguards prevented potential misuse before any public funds left government coffers. “What has been described in some quarters as institutional weakness is better understood as institutional resilience. The controls did not discover a loss after the event. They prevented the event. They did not chase money after it had gone. They kept it from moving.”
Although the Budget Office insists no public funds were expended, the controversy surrounding PEAC/PFIPC has intensified public debate over the creation, legal basis and budgetary provisions for government entities.
The office reiterated its readiness to cooperate fully with any lawful investigation, promising to provide official records, internal computations, correspondence and system-generated evidence to establish the sequence of events.