APM, DLA Fault NASS’ Extension Of 2025 Capital Budget

The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) and the Democratic and Leadership Alliance (DLA) have faulted the National Assembly’s decision to extend the implementation of the 2025 capital budget to December 31, 2026, warning that repeated rollovers undermine fiscal discipline and budget performance.

The National Assembly had on Tuesday approved the extension, shifting the deadline from September 30 to December 31, 2026. It is the fourth extension of the capital component of the 2025 budget. Lawmakers said the extension was necessary to enable Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to complete capital projects for which funds had been appropriated and released.

Reacting, the National Publicity Secretary of the APM, Abubakar Yusuf, said the practice encourages budget padding and reflects a distortion of the budget cycle under the administration of President Bola Tinubu.

“What do you expect? Since the inception of the Tinubu administration in the last three and a half years, the annual budget of the country has been completely altered. This is far away from the fear envisaged by the previous administration that reverted budget performance from January to December,” Yusuf said.

He argued that the overlapping of budgets since 2023 had led to poor budget performance.

“Since the inception of this administration, Nigeria’s budget has continued to overlap. This has led to non-performance from 2023 till now. The negative development has encouraged budget padding from the National Assembly to the Executive arm of government,” he said.

Yusuf expressed concern over alleged non-payment of local contractors, claiming some had been owed since 2024.

“Contractors are being owed for years since 2024 without payment. The 2024/2025 budget operated at 30 per cent,” he said.

He also alleged that implementation of the 2026 budget had yet to commence as of the last quarter of the year, while capital expenditure had suffered for three years.

“You won’t believe, in the last quarter of 2026, the year’s budget has not commenced implementation. What kind of country are we?” he queried.

“Capital budget has suffered for the past three years, while recurrent expenditure is partially implemented with only payment of salaries to some selected agencies. This is absurd.”

According to him, failure to honour contractual obligations was forcing local contractors out of business in favour of surrogates of government.

“We are in a country where local contractors are dying on a daily basis over lack of fulfilment of contractual obligations at the expense of selected foreign/local ones who are surrogates of the present administration or people in government,” Yusuf said.

“They only release funds that are being recycled back to them as slush funds. Imagine that.”

He urged the National Assembly and the Federal Government to end the persistent overlap in budget implementation and ensure timely funding of capital projects.

On its part, the DLA said repeated extensions create uncertainty for public investment and fiscal planning.

In a statement signed by its Head of Media and Publicity, Dr Tosin Odeyemi, the Alliance noted that prolonged implementation affects the timing of government contracts, infrastructure spending and payments to contractors, making it difficult for businesses dependent on public projects to forecast demand and cash flows.

“We are more concerned that this is the fourth time the implementation of this same budget has been extended,” Odeyemi said.

He argued that continued extensions could result in overlapping budget cycles and weaken fiscal accountability, with implications for the 2026 fiscal framework, even though the approved 2026 budget provides N26.08 trillion for capital expenditure within a total expenditure of N58.18 trillion.

Odeyemi also questioned the level of funding available for previous budgets and called on the Federal Government to account for revenues and expenditures.

The Alliance further referenced President Tinubu’s own 2026 budget speech, which acknowledged implementation pressures in 2025, noting that by the third quarter of 2025, only N3.10 trillion, representing about 17.7 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, had been released, partly because priority 2024 capital projects were being completed during the transition period.

The DLA called for greater transparency over budget execution and public borrowing, and urged stronger fiscal discipline in the management of national resources, while also criticising the administration’s economic management.