N1.32bn allocation: No Kobo was released to PFIPC, Budget Office tells Reps

By Gift Chapi Odekina

Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, on Friday defended the agency’s role in the controversial budgetary allocation to the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC), insisting that despite provisions made in the 2026 Appropriation Act, not a single kobo was released or spent because the statutory conditions for expenditure were never fulfilled.

Appearing before the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee investigating the alleged unlawful establishment and funding of the council, the DG maintained that the Budget Office neither created the council nor approved its establishment, recruitment or salaries.

He told lawmakers that the office merely carried out its constitutional responsibility of assessing the fiscal implications of approvals issued by other government institutions.

“The Budget Office did not create the council. It did not assign its budget code. It did not approve its establishment. It did not grant its recruitment waiver. It received official instruments and did what the law required of it. It measured their fiscal effect,” he said.