In a move that appears to affirm its detour to the path of credible fiscal policy formulation and management, the Federal Government recently directed all the federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that personnel costs in respect of youth corps members, consultants and other non-permanent staff in their employ are not captured by them in the on-going 2026 budget preparations.
This is indeed a welcome development, given the critical roles national budgets play in the shaping of economies around the world. As it were, national budgets offer templates from where citizens, states and organizations derive their level of stake holding in nations’ economic engagement programmes.
According to a new circular, dated July 7, 2025 and signed by the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, BOF, Tanimu Yakubu, and addressed to ministers, service chiefs, permanent secretaries, and heads of parastatals, only legitimate employees of the Federal Government are to be reflected in the personnel cost budget. It warned that any unauthorised payments from the personnel cost budget will attract appropriate sanctions, stressing that corps members’ allowances would be centrally captured under the National Youth Service Corps budget, while any additional stipends payable by host MDAs must come from overhead provisions.
In addition, the circular states that consultants, contract staff, industrial attaches, outsourced service providers, legionnaires and others in the category should not be included in MDAs’ nominal roll and/or Additional Information template as they are neither permanent nor pensionable staff of the Federal Government.
The most interesting aspect of the new budget order is the budget strengthening oversight wherein a Personnel Cost Monitoring Dashboard has been linked to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS and the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System. The Director-General in the Budget office equally explained that this built-in tool would enable real-time and online tracking of personnel expenditure against budgetary allocations.
Without mincing words, recent budgets in Nigeria, to say the least, have been falling below established global standards in the use of such documents as first-line tool for predetermining developmental outcomes. The reasons for this are not far-fetched. There were either no guideline in their preparations or the guidelines were not strictly adhered to.
Marco Rubio, the 72nd United States Secretary of state once said; “we need transparency in government spending. We need to put each government expenditure online so every Floridian can see where their tax money is being spent”. His assertion is important for users of budgets in all nations for developmental planning. Without transparency in budgeting, it is difficult to trust governments on their spending.
The baptismal budget proposal for the present administration of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was the supplementary budget of 2023. It provided N100BN for the rehabilitation of federal roads across Nigeria and another N100BN for the upgrade of facilities in the federal capital territory, Abuja among other provisions. Whereas the release of N50Bn each to these ministries was made public, not many Nigerians can attest to the release of the other half of the project execution provisions.
There are four major stages of budget implementation. They include; Formulation/Preparation, Authorization (legislation appraisal and debate on Executive Budget and supporting legislation), Budget Execution (implementation, monitoring and control and Accountability (public audit, review, reporting and assessment of effective implementation.
It is therefore heartwarming to note Mr. Tanimu Yakubu’s addition of the end of September, 2025 as deadline for the publication of the full-year 2024 Budget Performance Report alongside the outstanding Q1–Q2 2025 reports, after which quarterly releases will resume on schedule. If this happens, Yakubu will not be doing Nigerians any favour. Rather, he will be complying with the Fiscal Responsibility Act which mandates quarterly publication of Budget Implementation Reports.
Timeliness being one of the parameters to measure the credibility of financial documents, the directive by the Budget Office of the Federation, BOF to budget presenters to ensure the readiness of the 2026 budget for transmission to the National Assembly, NASS by September, 2025 should also be appreciated by Nigerians.
Early presentation of the document for passage into law will not only ensure its thorough scrutiny by the law makers, but also enable Nigerians to express their feelings and criticism of it, thereby making sure that the nation’s financial plans for next year meets the people’s expectations.
Another milestone waiting to be achieved by the forthcoming government working tool is the commencement of its implementation early enough. This will put paid to the era when budget implementation began as late as July instead of January. Keeping investors and industry players in the dark concerning government policy thrusts in new years have served as one of the clogs in the wheel governments and organisations’ progress over the years.
Beyond the removal of some personnel costs from the budget proposals of Ministries, Departments and Agencies, the scope of responsibilities of the ministry of housing should also be widened to accommodate the provision of houses and offices for all government offices. When done, it will definitely reduce the fraudulent provisions for fictitious projects in that sector.
The Federal Capital Territory Administration for example, should not be responsible for building houses for the country’s Vice President and highly placed judicial officers. In the same vein, the provisions and applications of Information and Communications Technology, ICT should be domiciled with the Ministry responsible for Technology, including the training of government officials, thereby also reducing the incidences of some offices procuring the same equipment in every budgetary year.
In the meantime, it behooves Nigerians to take advantage of the early presentation of next year’s budget and ensure that the debate on it uncover areas that the citizens may find to insensitive. This certainly will make government spending on areas such as foreign travels and external borrowings take their appropriate prides of place before the commencement of implementation.
