2027 Budget: FG Sets September 18 Deadline For MDAs, Targets September Submission To NASS

The Federal Government has directed ministries, departments and agencies to submit their 2027 personnel budget proposals by September 18, as it moves to present the 2027 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly this month.

The directive is contained in the 2027 Personnel Costs Budget Call Circular issued by the Budget Office of the Federation and signed by its Director General, Tanimu Yakubu, on September 4, 2026.

According to the circular, the draft 2027 to 2029 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper was concluded in July to facilitate the early submission of the 2027 budget to the National Assembly in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.

The Budget Office fixed 4pm on Friday, September 18, as the deadline for MDAs to submit hard and electronic copies of their personnel budget proposals and accompanying documents.

The move is part of efforts by the Federal Government to restore a more predictable budget cycle after years of overlapping fiscal years and challenges in implementing annual spending plans.

Nigeria’s budget implementation has continued to face difficulties, with the government previously attributing some underperformance to conflicting macroeconomic assumptions used by fiscal and monetary authorities.

Following a joint budget retreat and technical validation exercise, the government moved to harmonise projections on crude oil prices and production, exchange rates, inflation and non oil revenues, amid concerns that discrepancies between projections and actual outcomes were undermining budget planning.

The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Taiwo Oyedele, said harmonising the assumptions would help reduce discrepancies between budget projections and actual economic performance.

Meanwhile, the Budget Office has introduced a new safeguard requiring MDAs to submit the laws establishing them alongside their budget proposals.

The directive followed the controversy surrounding the inclusion of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council, an agency questioned over its legal status, in the 2026 budget with an allocation of about N1.3 billion.

The Budget Office warned that failure by an MDA to provide its Establishment Act could result in rejection of its budget proposal, as the government seeks to prevent unestablished agencies from being included in the national budget.