The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning has tendered an apology over a tweet by the ministry begging a US billionaire, Elon Musk, for ventilators on twitter.

The ministry subsequently deleted the tweet saying it was not authorised by the minister.

In a statement issued on Thursday over the issue by the Special Adviser, Media and Communications to the minister, Yunusa Abdullahi, the ministry described its action as regrettable adding that the tweet was a mistake.

The statement read, “An unauthorised post was made on the verified Twitter handle of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning. The fact of the post is regrettable because of which it is brought down

“We have made sure our internal processes are strengthened that such doesn’t happen again. The error is highly regrettable.”

Musk, who is worth $31.8bn, had taken to Twitter on Thursday to state that his firm had ventilators and was willing to donate to countries that needed them.

The business tycoon, who is also the founder and Chief Engineer, SpaceX, had tweeted on Thursday that his firm had extra ventilators that had been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in America.

He tweeted, “We have extra FDA-approved ventilators. We will ship to hospitals worldwide within Tesla delivery regions. Only requirement is that the vents are needed immediately for patients and not stored in a warehouse.”

In its response, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning tagged the billionaire on Twitter, asking him to assist Nigeria.

The ministry tweeted, “Dear @Elonmusk @Tesla Federal Government of Nigeria needs support with 100 to 500 ventilators to assist with COVID-19 cases rising every day in Nigeria.”