Nigeria Senate Approves Another Extension for 2024 Budget Capital Implementation, New Deadline Set for December 2025

The Nigerian Senate approved Tuesday a new extension for the capital component of the national budget of 2024, moving the deadline for implementation from June 30, 2025 to December 31, 2025.

This second extension in less than a year was precipitated in the three legislative readings in a single session after the Senate suspended its rules to accelerate the process.

The extension, according to the legislators, is necessary to ensure that the current fixed assets captured under the credit law of 28.7 billions of net swimming are fully implemented without being abandoned due to time constraints.

“We must not authorize the abandonment of these important national projects due to time constraints,” said Senator Solomon Adeola, president of the Senatorial Committee for credits and sponsor of the bill for modification. “The extension of the implementation period will guarantee a value for money and an improvement in the provision of services.”

The overlap of the Sparks budget concerns of governance

This development means that the 2024 budget will work simultaneously with the 2025 budget. Analysts say that this overlap creates a double -layer budget implementation, where two separate budgetary plans work simultaneously – a trend that reflects an increasing dysfunction in the Nigeria budget management system.

Even more worrying, the 2025 budget should also spread in 2026, taking into account the current trajectory and the precedent now defined. This increasingly elastic budgetary cycle, according to analysts, undermines planning, weakens budgetary responsibility and gives room for the implementation of LAX through the MDA (ministries, departments and agencies).

The first extension was granted in December 2024, deploying the deadline for implementing capital from December 31, 2024 to June 30, 2025. This decision followed an official request from President Bola Tinubu, which cited the need to optimize capital expenses in the midst of current reforms. But despite the additional six months, many projects remain not executed.

The new Senate decision offers a new extension of six months, making it a full year beyond the original budgetary calendar.

This now rooted model to ride on capital budgets year after year, according to observers, reveals deeper problems of poor coordination between the executive and the legislator, and an increasing tendency to hide the ineffectiveness under cover of pragmatism.

Mdas in the spotlight

The president of the Senate Godswill Akpabio, while announcing the initial extension during the budgetary presentation of 2025 by the president, had warned the MDAs to play their roles more seriously in the process of budgetary defense and execution. He noted that the National Assembly would take “decisive measures” against any MDA which delays or would not be able to appear before the committees for budget activities.

However, continuous implementation delays indicate structural weaknesses, including bureaucratic administrative formalities, corruption and poor supply practices.

Analysts believe that Nigeria, essentially carrying out two national budgets simultaneously, only provides foreseeable results – saying, duplication and minimum development impact.

Undermine the inheritance of the budget reform

The budgetary cycle from January to December, introduced under the 9th National Assembly and praised as a milestone for budgetary reform, was designed to instill predictability and discipline in the Nigeria public financing system. Until then, budgetary presentations and approvals were sporadic and are often very delayed in the exercise.

But with the 2024 budget now extended until December 2025, and the likely overflow of the 2025 budget in mid-2026, this reform legacy is more and more doubt.

Although legislators claim that the extension is to ensure that projects are completed and that public funds are not wasted, there is no clear signal of the federal government or the legislature on how they intend to return to a strict budgetary calendar. Some fear that extensions can become a permanent characteristic, allowing political actors to mix expenses without adequate supervision.

Meanwhile, ministries and agencies now have until the end of 2025 to conclude all projects under the capital allowance 2024. But with new budgetary obligations under the 2025 plan, the government risks the risk of outdoing itself financially, especially since income generation struggles and debt obligations increase.

In this context, analysts recommend drastic reforms to strengthen execution capacity, ensure responsibility and apply the discipline of the calendar. For fear that the Nigeria’s budgetary process will be divided into a Rollovers cycle with a minimum impact, despite the thousands of thousands of allowances each year.