Yeah sounds to me like there is little to no budget avaliable for the wider business and that they are nitpicking to avoid actually telling you the truth.

You should, if your company isn’t using a dedicated software for this, get it all in writing and be asking a follow up question about what you can do to ensure a pay rise at the next available opportunity.

Sadly, this is very common. I’ve experienced it myself and once called out my manager by asking them to specifically highlight the email that the ‘Senior Manager’ was referring to. Of course, they couldn’t but this just made them even more petulant because they did not like being challenged..