The National Assembly joint committee on Appropriations on Wednesday held an interactive session with the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Economic Team as parts of steps towards the consideration and passage of the N49.7trillion 2025 Appropriation Bill.

The committee also postponed its retreat on the 2025 budget earlier fixed for Thursday (today) till Wednesday next week, it was learnt.

The Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Solomon Adeola and his House of Representatives counterpart, Hon. Abubakar Birchi, led lawmakers to meet with the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for Economy, Dr Wale Edun, Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Atiku’s Bagudu, Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Doris Uzoka-Anite, Director General of the Budget Office, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu and the permanent secretaries of the Ministry of Finance and that of the ministry of Budget and National Planning, in Abuja.

During the session, the joint committee, according to a statement by the Media Adviser to Senator Adeola, Chief Kayode Odunaro expressed serious concern over the huge discrepancies in the size of the recurrent expenditure relative to capital expenditure and the low level of fund releases for capital projects to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) in the 2024 Budget whose lifespan has been extended till June 30th, 2025 that ongoing.

He said the panel agreed that the economic team should do something urgent to release more funds for capital projects as this is a major way for the people to feel the impact of government away from recurrent expenditure which affects only a negligible part of the population.

According to the statement, the position of the National Assembly followed the report of the Presidential Economic Team, led by Dr. Edun, showing that overall, the 2024 budget performance was 43 per cent with recurrent expenditure achieving 100 cent while capital expenditure was just 25 per cent.

Senator Adeola said he is an advocate of drastically reducing the ratio of recurrent expenditure to capital in the budget from the present level of about 80 per cent for recurrent and 20 per cent for capital to at least 60 per cent to 40 per cent, stressing that capital projects in the budget and their implementation are a major spur for economic growth and direct impact on the people.

“Capital releases to MDAs are the major drivers of economic activities within the nation. Non-release of funds for capital projects is a major issue in the performance of 2024 budget so far and it is desirable that funds are released to prevent abandoned projects and ensure the success of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the president,” he stated.

Senator Adeola said it will not be cheery news for MDAs to come for their 2025 budget defence with record of non-performance of their core mandates as contained in capital budget stressing that within the period of the 2024 budget still running, effort should be made by Finance Ministry to release funds for capital projects.

Concurring with his counterpart in the Senate, Hon. Birchi, called for more releases for capital projects of MDAs for such projects as schools, roads, dams, hospitals and other social infrastructure instead of such items as debt repayment which he argued can be restructured in the interim.
“Most of the items of recurrent expenditure which takes a huge part of our budget and is implemented 100 per cent will only directly affect about 10 per cent of our population while capital projects of the MDAs will directly affect majority of over 200 million Nigerians in areas of social infrastructure provisions like hospitals, schools, roads and energy,” he stated.

The Minister of Finance confirmed that they have outstanding capital releases awaiting funding even as he regretted that the country cannot go back on the old ways of spending money that is not there to avoid backlash as happened in France and Germany of recent, adding that there are warrants awaiting payment for capital projects.

Also throwing light on the issue, the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, said the huge recurrent expenditure in National budgets is a function of the nation’s level of development and some of the societal challenges the country is facing at this moment.

He added that some of the recurrent budget goes into the campaign against insecurity by the military which is yielding results to spur agricultural production and economic activities.

The Director General of Budget Office, Dr. Tanimu Yakubu, also attributed the huge recurrent expenditure to past legacies inherited by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in areas like unpaid pensions and gratuities which the administration has successfully addressed, stressing that in the future there may be need for legislation by the National Assembly to limit the size of recurrent expenditure in the budget.

Both teams also deliberated on the issue of waivers and tax holidays which seem to reduce revenues for the government.

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee on Appropriations has postponed its retreat on the 2025 Budget earlier fixed for Thursday this week.

Senator Adeola had on Monday while meeting with chairmen of Senate Standing Committees, said: “Also let me bring to our notice that the Committee on Appropriation will be organizing a retreat, which is Thursday of this week, which we usually call the budget retreat, so that all relevant stakeholders, civil society organizations and all relevant organizations should also have an insight into the real content of the document.

“The President had laid before the proposed estimate, but the details which was also laid, nobody would say this and this happened.

“But by the time the process starts, I know for a known fact that you start seeing different narration out there, this agency has been allocated that

“But we want to have a synopsis of ideas of what is contained in that document for the benefit of Nigerians and that will come up on Thursday this week, which we are working seriously to ensure that it’s a date and a very wonderful day in that regard.”

According to a sources close to the leadership of the Senate the postponement became necessary to ensure adequate preparation before the session.