No Missing ₦1.3bn, Budget Office Insists As It Details Spending Safeguards
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...