How Expenditure Controls Blocked ₦1.3bn PEAC Budget Allocation- DG Budget
By Patience Ikpeme
The Budget Office of the Federation (BOF) has stated that no public funds were disbursed or lost from the ₦1,302,978,783.00 appropriated for the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PEAC/PFIPC) in the 2026 budget.
In a statement issued on Friday, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation (BoF), clarified the legal distinction between an approved budget allocation and actual public spending.
He explained that a figure appearing in an Appropriation Act is merely the starting point of a regulatory process and does not automatically authorize the movement of funds. Public money moves only when strict statutory conditions are met, including administrative clearances, legal recruitment, payroll verification, Treasury warrants, cash backing, and procurement approvals.
Addressing the multi-agency structure governing federal finances, Yakubu pointed out that no single institution holds the power to convert an appropriation into expenditure on its own.
“Between appropriation and expenditure lies a chain of controls, with each link assigned to a different institution,” the DG stated. “The Budget Office is one part of that chain. The Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation approves establishment and recruitment. The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission regulates remuneration. The Federal Ministry of Finance and the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation control warrants, releases, cash backing and payment. The procurement authorities govern capital spending. No one institution can carry public money from appropriation to expenditure. Each control must hold before the next stage can open.”
According to the statement, PEAC/PFIPC entered the 2026 budget following its origin under the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari. Before the budget preparation began, the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) assigned an administrative code, while the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (OHCSF) granted an authorized establishment and recruitment waiver. When the Council submitted a personnel cost estimate of ₦3,850,935,000.00, the Budget Office rejected the figure and applied standard public-service costing methodologies to independently recalculate the allocation down to ₦802,978,783.00, which was subsequently submitted to Parliament.
The ₦802.97 million personnel provision, representing 61.63 per cent of the total budget, remained locked because required statutory milestones were never reached. The 2026 Appropriation Bill received Presidential Assent on March 31, 2026, making prior financial clearance impossible. Following assent, the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC) had not yet verified that the Council’s proposed salary arrangements complied with approved public-service compensation frameworks.
As a result, the Budget Office withheld Financial Clearance, preventing recruitment, payroll creation, or salary payments. Dr. Tanimu Yakubu noted that personnel allocations are never handed out as lump sums to agency heads; they are paid electronically month-by-month directly into the accounts of verified employees on the federal payroll.
The remaining allocations under the ₦1.3 billion budget similarly met institutional roadblocks. The ₦200,000,000.00 overhead provision required monthly releases via Treasury warrants. However, in June 2026, when legal questions arose surrounding the status of the Council, the Budget Office formally instructed the Federal Ministry of Finance and the OAGF to halt every instrument that could support payment. Furthermore, the ₦300,000,000.00 capital provision intended for start-up operational assets never reached the procurement stage, as no Ministerial Tenders Board approvals were granted and no Bureau of Public Procurement certificates were issued.
Reflecting on the outcome, the Budget Office maintained that the episode demonstrates the strength of Nigeria’s institutional financial controls in preventing financial loss.
“The law did not recover money after it had gone. It prevented the money from going,” Yakubu said. “What has been called weakness is better understood as resilience. The controls did not identify a loss after the event. They prevented the event. They did not pursue money after it had left the Treasury. They kept it from moving. The conclusion is firm. Not one kobo of the personnel provision could lawfully have been drawn, and not one kobo was drawn.”
The BOF concluded by confirming its full commitment to assisting ongoing inquiries by providing all official records, computations, and electronic system evidence to establish the facts.
