Senate yesterday through its Committee on Finance, expressed displeasure with multiple budgetary implementation in a fiscal year by the federal government as experienced in 2025.
It consequently tasked the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, to increase its projected revenue target for 2026 from N31trillion to N35trillion, even as the federal government lamented a shortfall of N30trillion from the N40trillion revenue target for 2025.
Displeasure of senators on multiple budget implementations in a fiscal year came to the fore during an interactive session that the Finance Committee chaired by Senator Sani Musa had with leading managers of the economy on the 2026-2028 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF, and Fiscal Strategy Paoer, FSP.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun had in his contextual explanations on projections for the 2026 budget and implementation of the 2024 and 2025 budgets, informed the committee that while revenues for the 2024 budget have been met, that of 2025 has not been met.
“Funding for capital components of the 2024 budget have been met through the realisation of N26trillion revenue but that of 2025 has not been met.
“Out of the projected N40trillion revenue for the 2025 fiscal year, only N10trillion has been realized, leaving a shortfall of N30trillion and consequently, making the federal government to roll over 70 percent of capital projects captured in the 2025 fiscal year to 2026,” he said.
Worried by the submission, some members of the committee like Senators Danjuma Goje, Olalere Oyewumi, Victor Umeh, Aminu Iya Abbas expressed displeasure with multiple budget implementation in a fiscal year .
Specifically, Senator Goje said the practice of implementing multiple budgets in a single year is unacceptable to Nigerians.
“This ugly situation should please end this year . It is not acceptable. It must be normalised from next year,” he said.
Senator Oyelere told the ninister that since budgetary proposals were not given to government by the governed, it should please present realizable proposals to avoid non-implementation which usually dovetails into multiple implementation in subsequent years.
Senators Umeh and Kingibe wondered why the federal government did not fill the missing gap in revenue targets with borrowings approved for it from time to time by the Senate and by extension, the National Assembly .
Senator Musa, however, came to the rescue of the ninister by assuring his colleagues and by extension, Nigerians that the required normalization in budget projections and implementation shall be done from 2026.
He added that a 3-man ad-hoc committee shall be set up by the committee to laise with the minister and the Accountant- General of the Federation on the payment of local contractors for projects executed in 2024 before the expiration of the budget on December 31.
For FIRS, Senator Musa tasked its Chairman, Zacch Adedeji to work towards realizing N35trillion as the target revenue for the 2026 fiscal year and not the earlier projected N31trillion.
The FIRS boss had, in making the projection, said the agency realised N20.2trillion revenue in 2024 and N25.2trillion in 2025 .
He, however noted that the huge revenue being realised by FIRS and other agencies like Customs are being swallowed and made insufficient by multiple budget implementation in a fiscal year.
The Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Atiku Bagudu and the Minister of State (Petroleum), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri defended the parameters set for the N54. 4 trillion 2026 budget.
The parameters are 1.84million oil production per day, $64.85 oil price benchmark, N1, 512.00 to 1USD as exchange rate etc.
