Economy
Why Nigeria’s 2025 Capital Budget Will Now Run Until December 2026 – House of Reps
The House of Representatives has approved a fourth extension of the capital component of the 2025 Appropriation Act, pushing the final implementation deadline from September 30 to December 31, 2026.
The extension approved during plenary on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, following the lawmakers’ resumption from their annual parliamentary recess, marks the fourth time the implementation timeline for the N54.99 trillion 2025 budget has been shifted.
Leading the debate on the bill to amend the Appropriation (Repeal and Re-enactment) Act 2025, House Leader Julius Ihonvbere stated that persisting economic realties made it impossible for federal ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) to complete capital projects within the previous September 30 deadline.
According to Ihonvbere, rigid adherence to the previous cutoff date would have forced many critical national development projects to stall due to expired legal spending windows, leaving contractors unpaid and public infrastructure unfinished.
Key reasons driving the extension include:
Preventing Project Abandonment: Ensuring that vital federal infrastructure, healthcare, and educational facilities currently under construction do not suffer delays or abandonment due to funding cutoffs.
Fiscal and Inflationary Bottlenecks: Absorbing the operational delays caused by macroeconomic fluctuations, cash-flow constraints, and procurement timeline shifts encountered by MDAs throughout the fiscal year.
Providing Legal Coverage: Giving contractors and federal agencies the mandatory legal authorization required to continue disbursements, execution, and project delivery without breaching financial regulations.
The N54.99 trillion 2025 budget was originally passed on February 13, 2025, and signed into law by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on February 28, 2025.
With this fourth extension—shifting the deadline sequentially from December 31, 2025, to March 31, 2026, June 30, September 30, and now December 31, 2026, the capital implementation phase under the 2025 Act will officially run for a full additional year beyond its original fiscal timeframe.
Lawmakers noted that the extra three-month window guarantees that federal agencies have sufficient runway to fully absorb and deploy allocated capital funds before lawmakers turn their full attention to subsequent fiscal frameworks. Following the passage of the bill through the Committee of Supply chaired by Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu, plenary was adjourned to Tuesday, October 13, 2026.
During Tuesday’s sitting, the House received three key executive communications sent by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for legislative action:
National Research and Development Fund Establishment Bill, 2026: A measure aimed at pooling scattered research funds across MDAs into a central, competitive fund managed under the Federal Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology, linked to the Nigerian Content Development Fund.
NDDC 2026 Statutory Budget: Transmitting a proposed expenditure of N1.75 trillion for the Niger Delta Development Commission, down from the N1.985 trillion approved in 2025.
National Postgraduate Medical College Amendment Bill, 2026: Designed to empower the college to award Ph.D. degrees in Clinical Medicine.
