President Bola Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic investigation into the creation of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) and other bogus agencies discovered in the system of the Federal Government.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
This was Tinubu’s first FEC meeting since June 29, when the FEC sat.
Oyedele said the decision was based on updates made to the President on the investigation carried out by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC).
He said the investigation showed it was not an isolated case and the President had ordered a wider review of government processes and controls.
“That has to do with the fake agency called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, Oyedele said. Mr President, we have given you the updates about the work that the ICPC has done, and as a consequence of that, the council has directed that we commission a forensic investigation that will look into our processes, our procedures, internal control weaknesses that allow some of these things to happen. The findings discovered that we indeed have additional fake agencies.
“The important thing is to find out what went wrong, how it can be prevented, and how we can strengthen our systems going forward. You build systems when you find problems, you deal with them decisively and that’s exactly what Mr President and council have directed today.”
Oyedele said Tinubu directed that the investigation should cover the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) as well.
The discovery of fake government agencies has raised fears that fictitious workers may be on the Federal Government payroll, he said.
“Mr President directed that the review should include IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees,” Oyedele further said.
“We cannot afford fake people hanging around in a country where you would have seen Mr President doing everything to ensure we enhance payroll, salaries and wages. “It hurts our ability to pay our people well, who are doing the hard work.”
The minister revealed that additional salaries and allowances for civil servants had been paid through subsidy savings and increased revenue amounting to ₦9.495 trillion.
He said the amount was above the actual savings the Federal Government realized from the removal of petrol subsidy.
The investigation will also look into how the fictitious agencies obtained administrative and Treasury Single Account codes within the Federal Government system, said Oyedele.
He said the fake entities had gone so far as to have accounts set up but received no government money.
The minister added: “They managed to register and obtain an administrative code and a TSA code. The only thing that didn’t happen was that we didn’t pay any money into those accounts.
But it’s gone too far to even reach that point. “The idea now is we want to find out what went wrong and strengthen the system.”
He said the Attorney-General of the Federation and his ministry have been directed to liaise with the relevant government institutions to address the issue from administrative, accounting and governance perspectives.
Idris Speaks On ICPC’s Findings –
The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the ICPC findings had proven that the problem was beyond the fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
Idris said investigators had identified at least two other fictitious agencies operating within the system.
Idris said: “The President was told that it was not just about the so-called Presidential Foreign Promotion Council and the fake DG that was there, but there were at least two other fake agencies that were in that process.
“Now what the President said was that this is not only about accounting, it is about also the administrative looseness that was discovered by the ICPC.
Idris said that Tinubu had directed the Attorney-General and the Finance Minister to jointly review the administrative and accounting procedures of the government and to engage the services of professional audit firms for a comprehensive forensic review.
“The goal is to make sure that the loopholes that allowed the scandal to happen will be closed forever,” the minister said.
“So that we have a forensic, total evaluation of this system, with a view to plugging this once and for all, so we don’t have this national embarrassment again,” he added.
I want you to know this didn’t just happen now. Maybe this goes back further than the President was in office.
“The President is not just looking at this, he is looking at the possibility that this may have occurred elsewhere too and is trying to find a solution that will stop this from happening again moving forward.
