LCCI tasks FG on weak budget execution, delays in fund releases

By Yinka Kolawole

The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has called for improved fiscal management even as it warned that weak budget execution and delay in release of funds remain critical challenges to the economy.

President of LCCI, Engr. Leye Kupoluyi, who made the call yesterday, in Lagos, during a quarterly media conference on the state of the economy, also called for a new template for capital budget releases to ensure adequate funding of capital projects.

His words: “Historical weaknesses in Nigeria’s budget execution capacity, delays in fund releases, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and inefficiencies remain critical challenges.

“The rollover of N7.71 trillion in unimplemented 2025 capital projects underscores the need for improved fiscal management, effective public-private partnerships (PPPs), and stronger collaboration between the executive and legislature to ensure timely project completion.

“We have followed budget defence sessions at the National Assembly and have noted concerning moments when Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) disclosed that they received only a tiny fraction of the funds approved for capital projects in the 2025 fiscal year.

“When contractors are owed large sums of capital, their operations are stifled, and jobs within their domains are threatened. The government must create a new template for capital budget releases to ensure capital projects are adequately funded.”

Kupoluyi also appealed to the government to resolve the constraints in the manufacturing sector, noting the sector’s huge contribution to the nation’s tax revenue collections.

“The manufacturing sector’s contribution to tax revenue collections in Nigeria maintained an upward trend in 2025, contributing a total of N1.17 trillion in Value Added Tax (VAT), an increase of 45.61 percent over the N803.53 billion in 2024.The sector’s Company Income Tax (CIT) contribution rose to N881.29 billion, marking a 32.83 percent increase from N663.46 billion recorded in 2024. This strong year-on-year growth reinforces the sector’s expanding role in generating government revenue and in Nigeria’s industrial development.

“Following these results, we call on the government to invest more in productive infrastructure and economic policies that drive growth through job creation, lower production costs, and fiscal interventions,” he stated.

The LCCI president further lamented that the poor state of electricity supply remains one of the greatest impediments to business operations.

“Frequent outages, high generator costs, and unreliable distribution networks are crippling productivity and raising the cost of doing business. Without urgent reforms in the power sector, Nigeria cannot achieve meaningful industrialisation,” he added.