President Buhari Set Date To Submit 2023 Budget To National Assembly

The Director General, Budget Office of the Federation, Ben Akabueze, has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari will present the 2023 budget, which will be his last one, in September 2023.

Akabueze said President Buhari will present the budget to the National Assembly next month to continue the annual budget approval that started during his administration.

During the Goodluck Jonathan-led administration, the budget had always been approved late, falling between the first and second quarter of every new year, leaving just about eight or nine months to implement the budget.

This often causes project conclusion to spillover into the next year, increasing the number of incomplete projects yearly. However, Buhari has returned the budget implementation to yearly, hence, the need for approval weeks or month before a new year.

Akabueze said Buhari intend to continue the timely preparation, submission and approval of the budget. He revealed this during the training for budget preparation through the usage of Government Integrated Financial Management Information System.

He was represented by the Director, Expenditure (Socials) in the Budget Office, Fabian Ogbu. Speaking on Akabueze’s behalf, Ogbu said the training is part of the budget preparation.

He added that, “The main goal of this training is to provide continuous learning to equip budget personnel with the requisite knowledge, skills and the tools they require to prepare and submit the 2023 budget.

“It has been observed that MDAs do not study the budget circular in detail, as such make mistakes that should ordinarily be avoided if they had complied with relevant sections of the budget cycle.”