The Senate and House of Representatives at plenary on Wednesday, 12th October 2022 debated and passed for Second Reading, the 2023 Appropriation Bill which has now been referred to the Committees on Appropriations in the respective houses. Following the referral of the 2023 Appropriation Bill, the Senate and House of Representatives adjourned plenary to Tuesday, 15th November 2022, to allow Committees carry out their budget defence exercise within the allotted period of four weeks. In the past, the debate on the Appropriation Bill lasts for a period of three days, to ensure the maximum participation of legislators. However, this time, the budget was debated and passed for Second reading in one plenary sitting. Likewise, adjournment for budget defence in the past was usually for a period of two weeks. This time, the National Assembly has suspended plenary for four weeks for ministries, departments and agencies of government to defend their proposed budgetary allocations. It will be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari presented a 2023nnational budget of N20.51 trillion to the National Assembly on 7th October 2022.
On 12th October 2022, the Senate passed for Second Reading, an Appropriation Bill of N607.962 billion for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), amid objections from legislators on the lateness of the budget presentation. The Senate also directed the FCT authority to present its 2023 budget proposal by this week unfailingly. The budget breakdown is as follows: N76.57 billion for personnel cost, N138.19 billion for overhead costs and N393.19 billion for capital projects. The National Assembly also approved a budget of N65.905 billion for the Nigeria Police Trust Fund.
This is not the first time that the budget for a fiscal year is being presented and considered towards the end of that year. Indeed, that was the practice with the national budget until 2019, when the President Buhari-led administration addressed the misnomer by ensuring that the 2020 budget was presented and approved by the end of 2019 to restore the country to the January to December budget cycle.