AbujaNigeria’s quarterly budget reports are months overdue.
The Budget Office says the 2025 Appropriation Act’s re-enactment extended the fiscal year to June 2026, legally delaying the quarterly publication timeline.
Outstanding reports will be released in phases over coming weeks; no specific dates were given.
Sources: Premium Times Nigeria
WHAT AN APPROPRIATION ACT DOES
An appropriation act is the legal instrument that authorizes the executive to spend money. Without it, the treasury cannot lawfully release a single naira — even for salaries already promised. The budget speech is theatre; the appropriation act is the cash key.
WHY THE FISCAL YEAR SLIPS
Nigeria's constitution sets the fiscal year as January to December, but the National Assembly has repeatedly passed late budgets and then extended the implementation window by re-enactment. A January-December budget signed in March effectively becomes a March-March budget — and the calendar drifts.
THE QUARTERLY REPORT MECHANIC
Nigeria's Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 requires the Budget Office to publish quarterly implementation reports within 30 days of each quarter's close. The reports show what was actually spent versus what was appropriated — the only public window into whether ministries are executing.
WHY DELAYS COMPOUND
When reports run months late, the next budget cycle begins before the last one is even audited. Legislators debate 2026 spending without knowing how 2024 actually closed. This is how recurrent overruns become structural — the feedback loop between authorization and accountability breaks.
THE NAIRA CONTEXT
Fiscal opacity and currency stress are linked. Markets that cannot see actual spending must assume the worst, and a naira that has lost over two-thirds of its value against the dollar since the 2023 float makes every delayed report a fresh question about whether the budget's revenue assumptions still hold.
THE PRECEDENT
Buhari's 2020 budget — signed in December 2019 — was the first January-aligned Nigerian budget in over a decade and was treated as a reform milestone. The drift back to mid-year signings under successive governments shows how hard fiscal discipline is to institutionalize once political incentives favor delay.