The National Assembly is set to extend the 2024 budget cycle, The PUNCH has gathered.
It was also learned that the 2025 budget will be passed at the end of the year.
President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to present the N47.9tn 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly at 12 pm.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Markets and Institutions, Osita Izunaso (APC, Imo West), noted that the late submission of the budget makes its passage within the year unfeasible.
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.”
The 9th National Assembly in 2020 introduced the January-December budget cycle during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari as a strategy to enhance budget performance.
This marked a departure from the June-May cycle, which persisted until the 2019 appropriation.
During the transition, the then-Senate President and Chairman of the National Assembly, Senator Ahmad Lawan, noted that the June-May cycle posed challenges for planning and effectively implementing Nigeria’s macroeconomic framework.
“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.
