Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, at plenary on Thursday confirmed that President Bola Tinubu will present the 2025 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly on Tuesday.
Akpabio said the budget presentation will begin at 11:00 a.m., and will be held in the House of Representatives chamber.
Akpabio said: “His Excellency, the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has indicated his intention to bring the 2025 budget proposals and estimates to a joint sitting of the National Assembly on 17th day of December, 2024.
“That will be at 11:00 a.m., prompt. That will be at the House of Representatives as usual. I am talking about Tuesday, next week.”
The Senate had on December 3, approved the 2025-2027 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and the Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) with a total spending of N47.9 trillion
The expenditure framework was approved with a new borrowing plan of N9.22 trillion which constitutes both domestic and foreign borrowings.
The MTEF is a projection of a three-year spending plan of the federal government. The nation’s budget is predicated on this framework.
The framework was approved with an exchange rate of N1,400 to a dollar and adopted the oil prices of $75, $76.2, and $75.3 per barrel for 2025, 2026, and 2027, respectively.
The proposed 2025 budget will be the second budget President Tinubu will present to the National Assembly.
In his speech at a joint session of the National Assembly on 29 May Tinubu promised to present the supplementary budget of 2024 fiscal year to the National Assembly but he had yet to do so.
The 2024 budget will expire at the end December. Based on the appropriation bills passed so far under the 10th Senate, Nigeria is currently implementing three budgets in one fiscal year.
They are the 2023 budget, 2023 supplementary budget and 2024 Appropriation Act.
The 2023 budget of N21.8 trillion and its supplementary of N2.17 trillion were the last two budgets implemented by former President Muhammadu Buhari.
When President Tinubu came to power, he requested that the capital components of the two budgets be extended till June to allow the federal government to complete ongoing projects captured in the budgets.
In June, when the implementations were supposed to close, the president requested additional extension till 31 December with the same claim of completing ongoing projects.
The 2023 budget and 2023 supplementary budget are being implemented despite the 2024 budget of N28.7 trillion.
This is the first time Nigeria would be implementing three budgets in one fiscal year based on the approval from the National Assembly since the return of democracy in 1999.
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