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The National Assembly has concluded plans to extend the 2024 budget cycle beyond the current year.
The lawmakers might also not pass the 2025 budget before the year runs out due to the late submission and presentation by President Bola Tinubu.
With this development, Nigeria will miss out on the culture of beginning a new year with a new budget, and the 2025 budget won’t run from January to December.
This was disclosed by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Markets and Institutions, Osita Izunaso, as reported by Punch on Wednesday.
Though he noted that the National Assembly would not intentionally delay the passage of the 2025 budget, and the budget would still have a lifespan of 12 months whenever it is passed, the Imo West Senator reiterated that the January to December budget cycle would be lost.
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.
President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, presented an estimated expenditure of ₦47.96 trillion for the 2025 fiscal year to the National Assembly.
