The National Assembly has retracted its earlier approval of the N54.99 trillion 2025 budget due to significant allocation errors. Both legislative chambers rescinded their February 13 decision to address discrepancies between capital and recurrent expenditures.
Francis Waive, Chairman of the House Committee on Rules and Business (APC, Delta), presented the motion for the rescission, explaining that the Joint Appropriation Committee had identified errors in the initial figures.
The revised total budget remains at N54.9 trillion but capital expenditure has been cut by over N500 billion, with an equivalent in recurrent spending. As a result, the capital allocation is now N23.439 trillion, while recurrent expenditure has risen to N13.588 trillion. These new figures differ from those initially approved by lawmakers.
The decision to amend the budget came after a motion was presented by Senator Adeola Olamilekan, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Appropriations, and Abubakar Kabir, Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Lawmakers quickly agreed to the motion, acknowledging that the errors required immediate correction to ensure a more accurate allocation of resources.
The initial allocation of the budget included N13.064 trillion for recurrent expenditures and N23.963 trillion for capital projects. The first breakdown of the N54.99 trillion proposal also featured N3.645 trillion for statutory transfers and N14.317 trillion for debt servicing
According to the document, the budgets for several agencies, including the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Police Affairs, National Pension Commission, Universities Pensions, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation (civilian pensions), and the Pension Transition Arrangement Directorate, were reduced in the version of the budget previously passed.
Waive explained that lawmakers were required to implement the corrections identified by the Joint Committee during the document’s compilation. He added that the rescission and passage would not affect the main figure of N54.9 trillion.
