By Sandra Kenneth
In a bid to restore the January-to-December fiscal calendar and curb systemic budget leakages, the Federal Government has set a September deadline to lay the 2027 budget proposal before the National Assembly.
To meet the ambitious timetable, the Budget Office of the Federation has directed all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to submit hard and soft copies of their 2027 personnel budget proposals by 4:00 PM on Friday, September 18, 2026.
The directives were detailed in the 2027 Personnel Costs Budget Call Circular dated September 4, signed by the Director-General of the Budget Office, Tanimu Yakubu. The circular revealed that the draft 2027–2029 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) was finalized in July to clear the path for early submission.
In a significant reform, the Federal Government is enforcing a mandatory new requirement: MDAs must now submit their enabling Establishment Acts alongside their budget proposals or face immediate rejection.
The strict protocol follows the high-profile scandal involving the fake “Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council” (PFIPC), which fraudulently secured a ₦1.3 billion allocation in the 2026 budget.
Subsequent investigations by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) revealed that the PFIPC lacked legal backing, operated with forged documentation, and was linked to self-proclaimed Director-General Adeniyi Adeyemi alongside key collaborators across multiple government offices. A secondary illegal entity, the “National Brands Development and Made-in-Nigeria Special Project Office,” was also uncovered within the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).
Following the ICPC interim report presented to President Bola Tinubu, executive sanctions were swift:
President Tinubu ordered the immediate arrest of promoter George Buchi Nwabueze.
Three permanent secretaries—M.S. Danjuma, Nadungu Gagare, and Richard P. Pheelangwah—were suspended over alleged collusion.
The House of Representatives has launched a comprehensive audit to verify all agencies listed in recent federal budgets against their legal mandates.
Harmonizing Assumptions and Addressing Execution Lags
The early budget timetable comes amid ongoing efforts to eliminate overlapping fiscal cycles and address persistent budget underperformance.
Following findings from joint budget retreats, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy Taiwo Oyedele confirmed that an Economic Management Team committee has harmonized previously conflicting macroeconomic assumptions—including crude oil benchmarks, exchange rates, inflation rates, and non-oil revenues—to ensure realistic projections for the 2027 spending plan.
