The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called on the National Assembly to cap future rollovers of capital budgets at one per fiscal year to restore the integrity of the January–December budget cycle and rebuild investor confidence in government infrastructure delivery.
The Senate had, during plenary on Tuesday, extended the implementation of the capital component of the 2024 Appropriation Act to December 31, 2025, marking the second such extension after an earlier shift to June 30, 2025.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriation, Olamilekan Adeola, reportedly explained that the Red Chamber sought to approve the extension of the 2024 budget to avoid abandoning projects of the Federal Government in different parts of the country.
Industry watchers have criticised the repeated extensions as evidence of poor execution capacity by ministries, departments, and agencies. The PUNCH reported that other stakeholders argued the extension may undermine fiscal discipline and complicate tracking of budget performance. But the LCCI has decried its impact on business and investor confidence.
In a virtual interview with The PUNCH, the Director-General of the LCCI, Dr Chinyere Almona, noted that while the goal of completing projects was laudable, serial rollovers corrode budget credibility.
She said, “We support the goal of finishing projects but caution that serial rollovers corrode budget credibility.
The business environment needs infrastructure spending to support business operations.”
Almona noted that the Federal Government’s capital execution rate remained low despite the rollover of funds.
She stated that by December 31, 2024, the Ministry of Finance had cash-backed only 22 per cent of its 2024 capital allocation. Similarly, as of September 2023, just N1.47 tn, or 25 per cent, of the 2023 capital budget had been released.
“The thin level of disbursement shows that time extensions alone do not guarantee concrete or cash on the ground,” she warned.
Almona described the capital component of the 2024 budget as “effectively unfunded” when weighed against debt service and recurrent expenditure. According to the LCCI DG, “In April 2025, the Chamber declared federal capital spending effectively unfunded once debt service (N14.3 tn) and recurrent costs (N13.6 tn) are netted off.”
The Chamber advised the Senate to tie any fresh borrowing to projects that are near completion and name infrastructure assets to ensure effective use of funds.
Almona added, “The Debt Management Office, in its effort to manage our debt, should tie any fresh borrowing to named, near-completion assets. This will ensure strict implementation of the capital allocations.”
She further called for the publication of quarterly, project-level dashboards that show funds released and physical completion rates, stating, “There is a clear lack of capacity on the part of MDAs in executing budgets and ensuring that monies released are judiciously used as allocated. With the delayed implementation, there may not be thorough negotiations and pricing in the tight schedule they face today, implementing a more than one-year budget.”
The 2024 budget initially had a capital allocation of N9.99 tn within a N34 tn national budget. Supplementary appropriations have since raised the capital component to roughly N13 tn.
