The Federal Government on yesterday approved the 2025 budget proposal. This follows the Senate’s endorsement of the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework 2025 – 2027 on November 22.

President Bola Tinubu will present the proposed N47.96tn budget to the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday. The exercise, earlier slated for Tuesday (today), was postponed to allow the executive arm to make final adjustments to the budget.

A top management official of the National Assembly confirmed the postponement on Monday, which was further corroborated by the Minister of State for Agriculture, Sabi Abdullahi.peaking to Senate Press Corps journalists on Monday, Abdullahi said, “The budget presentation has been postponed from Tuesday to Wednesday. The executive just needs to make one or two adjustments to the budget.”

Previously, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, had announced during a plenary session that the President would present the budget on Tuesday at the House of Representatives chamber. Akpabio added that plenary would begin at 10:30am to allow senators convene in the Red Chamber before proceeding in a procession to the House chamber for the presentation.

The forthcoming budget presentation is expected to align with the fiscal strategies outlined in these documents. The revised schedule underscores the importance of ensuring all necessary refinements are made to the budget before it is formally presented to the legislature.

“On the expenditure side, the 2024 budget forecasted an expenditure of N21tn, with N8.9tn allotted to debt service, N4.2tn on personnel and N5.86tn was released for capital expenditure, of which MDAs utilised 51 per cent for projects.” Bagudu said budget performance on debt service is 100 per cent.

“We are not defaulting. Part of what Mr President, led by the coordinating minister of the economy, convinced the investing public and the creditors that we would never default on our obligations, including the challenging non-recourse to Ways and Means beyond the legal limits.

“Equally, the performance on personnel and pension is about 100 per cent and the capital performance is about 51 per cent,” the minister said.

PUNCH