Senate: We Can’t Determine Time for  2025 Budget Submission

*Investigation reveals fiscal document may not be ready till December

Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

The Senate Committee on Finance has declared that the decision on the actual date for the presentation of the 2025 budget strictly lies with the executive arm of government headed by President Bola Tinubu.
However the Chairman, Senate Committee on Finance, Senator Sani Musa, had assured Nigerians that they had  nothing to fear over the submission of the fiscal document.
He  gave the assurance at his panel’s interactive session with Tinubu’s economic team and major players in the policy of the oil and gas sector at the Senate last Thursday.

Musa in response to a question by journalists on the said decision on the time for the submission of the budget, said it lies with the executive and not the Senate and by extension, not the National Assembly.
He said: “The executive should be able to answer that question, because I know they are doing their work, they are working. As chairman of Senate Committee on  Finance along with members of the committee, I have just interacted  with the Minister of Finance,  the Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Company ( NNPC) and other top managers of the Nation’s economy on performance of the 2024 budget.

“They are definitely working on the 2025 budget and will forward it to us when work on it must have been completed. Decision on that lies with the executive and not us at the National Assembly, “ he said.
He added: “I believe in the assurance given by the Finance Minister that our economy is taking good shape through results from the reforms.

“For example, our debt to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is decreasing and not Increasing.  The positive indices are already showing and within the next 16 to 18 months, Nigerians themselves will see the gains in practical terms.”

Meanwhile, indications  have emerged that the presentation of the 2025 fiscal document to the joint session of the National Assembly  will be carried out by the  president in the  first week of December this year.
This is because templates to facilitate the presentation had not been laid yet and the National Assembly, currently on emergency recess, would not resume Plenary until November 19.
In sharp contrast to the tradition laid down by 9th National Assembly on the presentation of budget estimates which was usually done in the first week of October, nothing had been done yet by the 10th National Assembly chaired by Godswill Akpabio.

As of the second week of November, the Medium Term Expenditure Framework ( (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP), which is the template upon which the 2025 Budget would be predicted, had not been submitted to the Sani Musa-led panel for scrutiny.
The MTEF/FSP document in the 9th Assembly, was always received in the month of September to enable the finance committees in both chambers have robust engagements with relevant revenue generating agencies by committees.

Tinubu presented estimates for the  2024 budget to the joint session of the National Assembly on Wednesday, November 29, 2023.
The development delayed its approval by both the Senate and the House of Representatives till  Saturday, December 30, 2023 and the signing into law till January 1 , 2024 by President Tinubu.
As of the second week in November, the executive arm of government had not said anything about when the 2025 – 2027 (MTEF) would be transmitted to the national parliament.

For instance, the MTEF-FSP would contain parameters like the oil price benchmark, projected  oil production per day, exchange rate of Naira to US dollar,   inflation rate among others, which would be used to prepare the fiscal document.