BREAKING: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO EXTEND 2024 BUDGET CYCLE
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The 2024 budget cycle will be extended by the National Assembly.
The budget for 2025 will be approved at the end of the year, it was also revealed.
At 12 pm, President Bola Tinubu will deliver the N47.9 trillion 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly.
Osita Izunaso (APC, Imo West), the chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Markets and Institutions, stated that the budget’s late submission precludes its passage this year.
Isunazo said, “The budget is coming late. Today is December 18, so we will lose that culture of beginning a new year with a new budget. Nevertheless, the budget has a lifespan of 12 months.
“So whenever we pass it, it will have a lifespan of 12 months. Even after 12 months, we still have the liberty to extend it. In fact, we are extending the 2024 budget today.
“But that culture of starting on the 1st of January, we have lost it. The executive ought to have brought this budget way before now. But I believe that maybe they are putting things together.
“They wouldn’t want to delay deliberately bringing the budget to the National Assembly. So I’m saying that that is not a problem, but we have lost that culture.”
During the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, the 9th National Assembly in 2020 implemented the January-December budget cycle as a means of improving budget performance.
The June-May cycle, which continued until the 2019 appropriation, was broken with this.
The June-May cycle presented difficulties for organising and successfully executing Nigeria’s macroeconomic framework throughout the transition, according to Senator Ahmad Lawan, the then-Senate President and Chairman of the National Assembly.
“We believe that if we can do that, our budget will go back to that regular cycle, that desirable cycle of January to December, and that will enhance the budget performance of this country,” Lawan has stated.
Although the Senate and the House of Representatives passed the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper last week, uncertainty lingers about when President Tinubu will present the 2027 budget estimates to a joint session of the legislature
Tinubu presented the 2024 budget before a joint session of the National Assembly on November 29, 2023, and it was subsequently passed on December 30—approximately one month later.
At the presentation, Tinubu emphasised the importance of maintaining the January-December cycle, urging lawmakers to ensure the 2024 budget’s timely passage.
“I am confident that the National Assembly will continue to work closely with us to ensure that deliberations on the 2024 budget are thorough and concluded with reasonable dispatch. Our goal is for the Appropriation Act to take effect on the 1st of January 2024,” he had stated.
Separate, private sessions are being held in both chambers.
According to our correspondent, among other executives already present at the National Assembly are Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited Group Managing Director Mele Kyari and Minister of Finance Wale Edun.
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