President Bola Tinubu has ordered a comprehensive forensic investigation into the scandal surrounding the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
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 presided over by Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Oyedele said the investigation would examine government processes, procedures and internal controls that allowed the fake agency and other fictitious agencies to emerge.
“That is to do with the fake agency that is called the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council. Mr President gave us the updates about the work the ICPC has done, and as a result 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, because the findings discovered that we indeed have additional fake agencies.
“What is important is to establish what went wrong, how it can be prevented, and going forward, how we can make our systems stronger.
“Systems are built when you find problems, you deal with them decisively, and that’s exactly what Mr President and council have directed today.”
He said the Attorney-General of the Federation and his ministry had been directed to work with relevant agencies to address the issue from administrative, accounting and governance perspectives.
Oyedele added that the review would cover the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS), noting that the existence of fake agencies could indicate the presence of fictitious employees on the government payroll.
“Mr President directed that the review should extend to IPPIS, because if you have fake agencies, you most likely have fake employees.
“In a country where you would have seen Mr President doing everything to ensure we enhance payroll, salaries and wages, we can’t afford to have fake people hanging around. It undermines our ability to pay our people well, who are doing the hard work,” he said.
According to Oyedele, N9.495tn in subsidy savings and additional revenue had been used for increased salaries and allowances for civil servants, exceeding the actual savings realised by the Federal Government from subsidy removal.
He stressed that the government would not allow fictitious agencies and personnel to undermine public finances.
“It’s collective responsibility. Something went wrong. Someone managed, with whatever people they colluded with, to create a fake agency that had an office within the institution of the Federal Government.
“They managed to register and obtain an administrative code as well as a TSA code. The only thing that didn’t happen was we didn’t pay any money to those accounts. But it’s gone too far to even get to that level. Now the idea is we want to find out what went wrong and strengthen the system.”
Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, said the ICPC investigation uncovered at least two additional fake agencies besides the purported Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
