State House denies documents used to establish fake presidential agency

The House of Representatives Ad-hoc Committee investigating the alleged operations of the controversial Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council (PFIPC) on Thursday uncovered what it described as forged State House documents used to legitimise the purported agency, while the Presidency denied any role in its establishment or funding.

At the investigative hearing in Abuja, officials from the State House told lawmakers that the Presidency neither created the council nor requested the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) to issue it a budget code, contradicting documents previously obtained by the committee.

Representing the Permanent Secretary, State House, Director of Administration Abdulkadri Idris dismissed as fake letters purportedly originating from the Presidency, saying they contained the name of an official and a department that never existed.

“We did not send any correspondence or request to the Accountant-General in respect of this council. We don’t even know anything about this council. We only became aware of it through media reports,” Idris told lawmakers.

He said one of the documents presented to the committee bore the signature of “Akande Adewale” as Director of Administration and Support Services, an office he said had never existed within the State House.

“There has never been a Director of Administration by that name, and there is no Directorate of Administration and Support Services in the State House,” he said, adding that authentic records of directors and official letterheads had already been submitted to investigators.

Committee Chairman Yusuf Gagdi said the testimony exposed glaring discrepancies between documents supplied by the Accountant-General’s Office and official records from the Presidency.

“The State House has denied writing the letter requesting budget codes. It has also confirmed that the office contained in those documents does not exist, while the alleged signatory is unknown to its records,” Gagdi said.