The Budget Office of the Federation has said no public funds were released to the non-existent Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) as statutory expenditure controls prevented the appropriation from translating into actual spending.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Director General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu, said the public had wrongly conflated parliamentary appropriation with government expenditure, stressing that the budgetary provision never advanced beyond the appropriation stage.
“The money never moved because the controls held,” Mr Yakubu said.
The statement comes amid ongoing investigations into the activities of the PFIPC, whose operations and inclusion in the 2026 Appropriation Act have triggered probes by the police, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), and the National Assembly.
The police have arrested the council’s promoter and self-styled Director General, Adeniyi Adeyemi, and charged him with forgery and impersonation in an eight-count charge.
President Bola Tinubu has also directed the ICPC to investigate the matter and report within 30 days.
The National Assembly has also invited several heads of government agencies who have shared correspondence and approved the non-existent agency.
Newsmen had also listed the Budget Office as one of the government agencies that failed to properly scrutinise the PFIPC before granting it a budget code.
