President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday directed the commissioning of a comprehensive forensic investigation into the fictitious Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) scandal.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by Tinubu at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.
Oyedele said President Tinubu had directed the Attorney-General of the Federation and his office to work with other relevant agencies to examine the matter holistically, covering its administrative, accounting and governance dimensions.
He said, “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.”
The former tax reform chief disclosed that the President had specifically ordered the review to extend to the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, warning that the existence of fake agencies likely meant that fake employees could also be somewhere within the Federal 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.
Oyedele also disclosed that N9.495tn in subsidy savings and incremental revenue had gone into incremental payment of salaries and allowances to civil servants, a figure he said exceeded the actual savings that accrued to the Federal Government from the removal of subsidy.
He explained, “So we don’t want to be further constrained by fake agencies and fake personnel. This is something we take very seriously, and the Nigerian people will get updates as we progress.
“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.
