The Senate Tuesday extended the implementation timeline of the capital component of the 2024 budget to December 31, 2025.

It did this during the plenary, following an appropriation bill requesting its amendment and extension.

Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin announced the extension of the appropriation bill after it was read for the first, second and third times on the same day and supported by most of the senators.

The bill was also considered at the Senate Committee on Supply.

This is the second time the Senate is extending the capital implementation phase of the 2024 budget.

The earlier extension followed a request from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who in December 2024, wrote to the National Assembly seeking approval to shift the capital expenditure implementation deadline from 31 December 2024 to 30 June 2025.

The president’s justification at the time was to enable the executive arm to complete ongoing capital projects and optimise budgetary allocations.

The chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Olamilekan Adeola (APC, Ogun West), led the debate on the fresh extension of the budget at plenary yesterday.

Adeola explained that the extension was required to allow the federal government to complete ongoing projects captured in the budgets.

Adeola urged his colleagues to support the extension of the budget in order to avoid abandoned projects of the federal government in different parts of the country.

Also yesterday, the House of Representatives passed for second reading, a bill seeking to extend the implementation of the capital component of the 2024 approved budget from June 30 to December 31, 2025.

The bill which was presented to the House by the Deputy Majority Leader, Ibrahim Abdullahi Halims, was titled: ‘A Bill for an Act to Amend the 2024 Appropriation Act to Further Extend the Capital Components of the Act From 30th June 2025 to 31st December, 2025 and for Related Matters (HB.2404)’

Speaker Abbas Tajudeen said the extension of the budget was necessary because the implementation of the 2024 had not been substantially done.

The bill was passed for second reading after a voice vote and referred to the Committee on Supply for further legislative actions.

Two budgets running concurrently

With the new deadline of 31 December 2025, Nigeria is now running two budgets (2024 and 2025) within a single fiscal year.

When the 2024 budget was extended in December last year, critics had described it as a reflection of weak execution capacity of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs); who those who supported the extension had said it would ensure value for money and completion of critical infrastructure projects that otherwise would have been abandoned.

Timeline of budget extensions under Tinubu’s administration

Since assuming office in May 2023, President Tinubu has, on several occasions, asked the National Assembly to extend the lifespan of budgets to allow full implementation, especially the capital components.

The first extension came at the end of 2023. Faced with under-implementation of the capital components of the 2023 Appropriation Act and the N2.17 trillion supplementary budget passed in the third quarter of that year, President Tinubu formally requested the National Assembly to extend the spending deadline. The National Assembly swiftly obliged, pushing the implementation period to March 31, 2024.

This extension, the executive had explained, was aimed at ensuring that funds already released could be effectively utilised and key infrastructure projects completed.

As the March deadline approached, the executive again cited delays in procurement and project execution as reasons for requesting more time. In March 2024, the legislature approved a second extension, giving the government till June 30, 2024 to fully implement the 2023 budget and supplementary appropriations.

In June 2024, just days before the expiration of the revised deadline, President Tinubu sought a fresh request for more time.

The National Assembly granted the third extension, extending the implementation of the 2023 capital budget and supplementary spending to December 31, 2024.

While presenting the 2025 Appropriation Bill, the Tinubu administration also requested an extension for the implementation of the 2024 budget, particularly its capital components. In December 2024, the National Assembly approved this request, extending the implementation to June 30, 2025.

The parliament had said that was aimed at enabling the MDAs to complete ongoing projects without disrupting fiscal continuity.

Experts, CSOs speak

Experts, who spoke to Daily Trust, expressed different views on the persistent extensions of national budgets, with some supporting it and others cautioning.

According to Professor Garuba Sheka, an economist, there is nothing wrong in extending the implementation of the budget but such instances must be reduced to the barest minimum to reduce corruption and diversion of funds.

He emphasised the need for fiscal discipline in the implementation timelines of national budgets.

“I think Buhari (former President Buhari) was able to achieve that; he started implementation in January and closed by December and then the budget that was submitted much early before the end of December and it would be approved.

“It’s good to push it a little bit because sometimes, if you look at it critically, all these things that we are debating you find that at the end of the year, they may not implement 30% of it, and then, they would announce another one. There is no point in announcing figures that you cannot implement; it is better if they can actually have enough time.

“So I see that it doesn’t make any difference, In fact it’s even better because if last budget is not up to 50% (implementation) and they just shelve it and continue with other things, I think there is contradiction and there will be a lot  of problems; a lot of projects that might not be completed , it may not even be in this year’s budget.

“For instance, what was appropriated in the N53 trillion of this year, if up to next year February or January they are not able to implement up to 50 % and they decide that they should implement New Year’s budget, then you find that a lot of projects may not have been executed. At the end of the day we will be in limbo.

“It’s a form of good intention that they want to meet up with all the obligations and promises of the last year’s budget.”

The economist, however, warned that the practice is prone to corruption and insertion of unnecessary projects.

“If everything is planned appropriately then you may not even have any chance of hiding or inserting something that has not been planned earlier.

“Implementation is the most important, if you are not able to implement it properly it’s just a waste of time and resources. So the heads of all these MDAs know fully well that most of them are going to defend the budget.

“So after defending and all the figures approved and probably they have not been given the financial backing by the government, they may connive at the end of the day either with officials in the finance ministry or whatever to get themselves out of the situation.”

Senior Partner at SPM Professionals, Dr Paul Alaje, said the extension of capital budget implementation to December 2025 means that the federal government may likely borrow to fund the capital projects

He said: “The critical question to ask is that if the extension of the budget is for projects that have been executed, or the ones yet to be executed.

“This is critical because we don’t have revenue to fund the extension of the 2024 budget cycle which ought to have been closed by now. Even the 2025 budget, we have borrowed more than we have ever done just to fund it so the most likely way out is more borrowing to fund the extension which is not good.

“It means we are running 2024 and 2025 budgets concurrently owing to the fact that by December 2025, the president is supposed to submit 2026 budget,” he said.

He advised the government to always exhaust budget cycles before presenting fresh ones.

“We have also said that if, for instance, 2024 budget wasn’t concluded, wait until the New Year before presenting 2025 budget, but instead, this scenario we have two budgets with no funding for implementation,” he said.

He said implementing 2024 and 2025 capital budgets concurrently would mean more liquidity for the government “which is not also good in terms of inflation.”

Another economist, Dr Marcel Okeke, described the extension as arbitrary, saying “It is improper to drag the budget of last year to this year. It is causing a lot of distortions in the economy.

“The conditions under which the budget was made last year are no longer the condition that exists this year. So, it is improper to drag the budget  of last year to this year. For instance, the assumptions of oil production and prices and exchange rate, inflation and all that on which the budget of last year was made are no longer the same thing today.”

The Network for the Actualization of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD), in a statement by its Country Head, Akingunola Omoniyi, described as a dangerous trend of encouraging fiscal indiscipline through the repeated extension of national budgets.

The statement read in part: “The National Assembly’s oversight responsibility on public finance is being badly compromised. National budgets, by design and as enshrined in the Constitution, are time-bound instruments. Their nomenclature — ‘2024 Budget’, for instance — is not merely semantic. It reflects a constitutionally defined fiscal year, which ends on December 31 of the given appropriation.

“A budget is a financial estimate prepared by the executive with the presumption that adequate needs assessments and due diligence have been conducted. If implementation fails, it is the National Assembly’s duty to demand accountability, not to extend timelines endlessly.”

The organisation said the existence of the 2025 Appropriation Act renders any prolonged implementation of the 2024 budget irregular, unconstitutional and misleading.

It urged the National Assembly to either discontinue the extension or revise the nomenclature accordingly, as “continuing to refer to it as the 2024 Appropriation Act beyond its legal expiration date of December 31, 2024 is both deceptive and unlawful.”

Also reacting, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani, Executive Director of the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), alleged that budget extension was totally against any well-known fiscal process and procedure in the country and showed desperation by the current administration to grab public resources at all costs to justify what it wanted to spend even when it did not have the capacity.

“This does not show financial discipline or coherent national planning to deliver any meaningful project. What the National Assembly and the presidency are doing is promoting financial impunity and poor management of public resources.

“If you don’t have the resources or capacity to implement a budget, don’t make it bogus. Make a realistic budget within the available resources. What they are doing is budgeting on speculation and borrowing — borrowing that has no positive impact on Nigerians.”

Budget extension not illegal – Lawyers

In separate interviews with Daily Trust, lawyers said the law permits extension of Appropriation Acts.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Dayo Akinlaja, stated: “Everything that has to do with legislative power of the country is vested in the National Assembly.

“What is being done is within the province of the legislative capacity of the National Assembly.”

Corroborating Akinlaja’s view, another SAN, Adedayo Adedeji said: “The major concern one may have in respect of the extension would be the spirit of the Fiscal Responsibility Act to the effect that budgets should be executed within the same fiscal year

“However, since the Act does not outrightly prohibit an extension into another fiscal year, then the house’s move cannot be branded as illegal.

“This power is well within the legislative competence of the National Assembly as donated by S.4 of the Constitution of the FRN, 1999.

“Whilst discipline of yearly budgeting and execution is advisable, it is not illegal for the House of Representatives to move for an extension particularly when they are doing it through an amendment process.”

By Itodo Daniel Sule, Philip Shimnom Clement, John Chuks Azu, Abbas Jimoh (Abuja) & Abdullateef Aliyu (Lagos)