We Need More Funding In 2025 Budget, Finance Ministry Begs Reps

The Ministry of Finance, Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC), and other related agencies have pleaded with the House of Representatives Committee on finance to increase their funding in the 2025 budget.

The minister of state for Finance, Doris Uzoka-Anite; Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) chairman, Victor Muruako; and chairman, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Muhammad Shehu, made the appeal when they appeared before the House committee on finance for the 2025 budget.

Uzoka-Anite told the lawmakers that while the ministry’s offices may appear good from outside, they need a lot of rehabilitation and sought increased capital allocation to address the challenges.

“Our offices look good from the outside but the inside needs a lot of rehabilitation. We wish that you can improve our capital allocation as well as the overhead. And we think that with the Senate committee on finance, we can improve our capital allocation and our overhead. Five goes to overhead. So that was what the Minister of State was presenting,” she said.

While noting that the proposed N38 billion budget for the ministry in 2025, the minister said: “on behalf of the coordinating minister, Honourable chair and members of this committee, I would also like to plead with you, just as we call the support of the Senate committee on finance, please, Honourable chair, help us to improve our envelope for 2025.

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Similarly, the fiscal responsibility commission chairman, Muruako, appealed for increased funding, lamenting the insufficient allocations for personnel and capital projects.

“We make a case here to add that our personnel appropriation is exhausted as of October. We had to ask for augmentation to enable our staff to be paid from October, November, and December. This delayed our staff payment for the period, sometimes up to three weeks.

“We also provided insufficient appropriation for personnel again in 2025. The Commission was allocated a very tight personnel appropriation, leaving no room for promotion, some allowances, The total proposed for personnel for 2025 is N361,871,239.

“Our overhead envelope is N738,291,539. And the capital is N596,930,905. Bringing in a constitute proposed appropriation for FRC in 2005 to $1,697,674.

Our role in getting the government-owned enterprises and revenue agencies because we believe every agency is a revenue-generating agency, no matter the percentage,” he said.

In his presentation, the chairman RMAFC, Shehu, lamented the challenges of inadequate funding, exchange rate fluctuations and tariff shortfalls, and appealed for increased allocations and support to enable them to deliver on their mandates.