"A government that creates laws but refuses to obey its own laws is no longer leading by example."

Preamble

In any functional democracy, the social contract between the governed and the governing is sustained by trust. In the economic realm, that trust is expressed through transparency specifically, the timely, accurate, and comprehensive disclosure of how public resources are raised, allocated, and spent. The Quarterly Budget Implementation Report (QBIR) is not a bureaucratic nicety; it is the financial heartbeat of the nation, the instrument through which citizens, businesses, investors, and lawmakers track the government's stewardship of public wealth.

It is with profound concern that the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (LTDGTE) draws the attention of the Nigerian government, the National Assembly, the business community, and the international investment community to a deeply troubling development: for the first time in fifteen years, the Budget Office of the Federation has failed to publish three consecutive Quarterly Budget Implementation Reports specifically for the third quarter of 2025, the fourth quarter of 2025, and the first quarter of 2026 [1]. The last published report covered only the second quarter of 2024. As of May 2026, Nigeria's fiscal operations are effectively shrouded in darkness.

This is not a minor administrative lapse. It is a statutory violation, a governance failure, and an economic hazard of the first order. This article examines the legal foundations of the reporting obligation, the consequences of non-publication for business planning, investment, and fiscal discipline, the lessons from comparable experiences across Africa and the wider world, and the urgent case for immediate remediation.

1. The Statutory Foundation: A Duty, not a Discretion

The publication of quarterly budget implementation reports in Nigeria is not a voluntary act of administrative goodwill. It is a clear, unambiguous legal obligation enshrined in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2007, one of the most important pieces of public financial management legislation in Nigeria's post-democratic history.

Section 30(1) of the FRA mandates the Minister of Finance, through the Budget Office of the Federation, to monitor and evaluate the implementation of the Annual Budget on a quarterly basis and to report to the Fiscal Responsibility Council and the Joint Finance Committee of the National Assembly [2]. Section 50 further requires that within thirty days after the end of each quarter, a summarized report on budget execution shall be published on the Ministry's website. The government is also required to publish a consolidated budget execution report no later than six months after the end of the financial year.

These provisions were not written in ambiguity. They were designed with precision and purpose: to ensure that the public, the legislature, and the market have real-time visibility into the government's fiscal performance. The Act contains no exemption for "verification and reconciliation," no waiver for administrative transitions, and no provision permitting the executive to delay publication at its own discretion. The law is categorical.

It is therefore deeply troubling that the Budget Office has offered the explanation that delays were caused by "project verification checks" and a "transition to a new fiscal framework" [1]. Every government verifies figures. Every government reconciles accounts. These are not exceptional circumstances; they are routine functions of any competent treasury operation. The Fiscal Responsibility Act was written with full knowledge that governments conduct these activities, and it still mandated a thirty-day reporting deadline. The explanation offered by the Budget Office is, in the assessment of this Alliance, legally insufficient and institutionally unconvincing.

Previous administrations going back to 2010 consistently met their reporting obligations. The current administration's failure to do so is unprecedented in fifteen years of democratic governance and represents a regression in the quality of public financial management in Nigeria [1].

1. The Business Dimension: Planning in the Dark

The consequences of this reporting blackout are not abstract. They are felt concretely in boardrooms, on factory floors, in the offices of small and medium enterprises, and in the risk models of international investors. To understand why, one must appreciate the central role that government fiscal data plays in business decision-making.

Government expenditure is a primary driver of economic activity. In Nigeria, the federal budget allocates trillions of Naira annually to infrastructure, health, education, security, and social services. These allocations directly determine the level of economic activity in construction, manufacturing, services, and agriculture. When a business seeks to plan its production capacity, forecast demand, or assess the viability of a new investment, it relies heavily on data about government spending patterns. The QBIR provides precisely this data it reveals how much of the approved budget has actually been released, how much has been spent, which sectors are receiving priority, and whether capital projects are progressing on schedule.

Without this information, businesses are forced to operate on guesswork. A construction company cannot confidently bid on government contracts if it does not know whether the government has the fiscal space to honour payment obligations. A manufacturer cannot scale production if it cannot assess whether government infrastructure investments will improve logistics and reduce operating costs. A financial institution cannot price risk accurately if it cannot determine the government's actual debt service burden relative to revenue performance.

The QBIR also serves as a critical early-warning system. When revenue falls short of projections, the QBIR reveals this gap, allowing businesses to anticipate potential government austerity measures, reduced public procurement, or currency pressures. When capital expenditure is consistently under-implemented as has been the pattern in Nigeria, where budget rollovers have become endemic the QBIR documents this failure, enabling businesses to recalibrate their expectations and adjust their strategies accordingly. Without the QBIR, these signals are suppressed, and businesses are denied the information they need to navigate an already challenging economic environment.

The current situation is particularly egregious because Nigeria is simultaneously executing three overlapping budgets: the 2025 budget, parts of the 2024 supplementary budget, and uncompleted capital items from the 2024 main budget [1]. This extraordinary fiscal complexity demands greater transparency, not less. Yet the government has chosen this precise moment to go silent.

III. The Investment Dimension: Capital Follows Credibility

Capital is not patriotic. It flows to jurisdictions where it is treated with respect, where the rules are clear and consistently enforced, and where the government's financial conduct is visible and predictable. Fiscal transparency is, in this sense, not merely a governance virtue; it is an economic asset of immense commercial value.

The empirical evidence on this relationship is compelling. A landmark 2026 study by IMF economists, drawing on bilateral FDI data across developing economies, found that fiscal discipline and fiscal institutions are strongly and statistically significantly associated with higher FDI inflows [3]. Crucially, the study found that these relationships are economically stronger in low-income countries than in emerging markets, precisely because investors in more uncertain environments place a greater premium on institutional credibility. The study also found that stronger fiscal institutions attract not just more FDI, but better-quality FDI specifically, more R&D-intensive projects that generate productivity gains and spillovers into the domestic economy.

The implications for Nigeria are direct and sobering. Nigeria's FDI inflows declined by over 70% in the first quarter of 2025 [4]. This is not merely a reflection of global capital market conditions; it is a signal of deteriorating investor confidence in Nigeria's institutional environment. The withholding of budget implementation reports compounds this problem by removing one of the few objective, data-driven tools that investors use to assess the government's fiscal credibility.

The relationship between fiscal transparency and sovereign creditworthiness is equally well-documented. Transparent fiscal reporting enables credit rating agencies Moody's, Fitch, S&P to make accurate assessments of a government's fiscal position. When this data is withheld, rating agencies are forced to rely on incomplete information, which typically results in a higher risk premium being applied to the sovereign. Higher risk premiums translate directly into higher borrowing costs, not just for the government, but for the entire private sector operating within the country's financial system. UNDP has estimated that 16 African countries pay more in debt servicing costs than they should, precisely because their credit ratings are lower than they could be if governance and transparency were stronger [5].

For Nigeria, which issued a $2.2 billion Eurobond in December 2024 at significant cost, the implications of fiscal opacity are not theoretical. Every basis point added to Nigeria's borrowing cost because of governance deficits represents real money  money that could have funded hospitals, roads, or schools.

1. Lessons from Africa: The Transparency Dividend and the Opacity Penalty

Africa's own experience offers the most instructive lessons for Nigeria, because the continent's nations share comparable institutional histories, resource endowments, and development challenges. Yet the divergence in outcomes between transparent and opaque fiscal managers is stark.

The South African Model

South Africa consistently ranks among the top performers in the Open Budget Index (OBI), the world's most authoritative independent assessment of budget transparency. In the 2023 OBI, South Africa scored 61 out of 100 a score that indicates the country is publishing sufficient material to support informed public debate on the budget [6]. The International Monetary Fund's 2024 Fiscal Transparency Evaluation ranked South Africa second out of 120 countries surveyed.

The U.S. Department of State's 2025 Investment Climate Statement for South Africa explicitly identifies the country's fiscal transparency as a key enabler of its investment climate, noting that the National Treasury publishes executive budgets online and provides comprehensive in-year reports on budget execution [7]. This transparency has allowed South Africa to maintain deep and well-regulated capital markets, attract regional and global investment, and sustain its position as the most industrialized economy in Sub-Saharan Africa, even in the face of significant structural challenges.

The lesson is clear: transparency does not guarantee prosperity, but it creates the conditions under which prosperity becomes possible. It signals to investors that the government can be held accountable, that the rule of law is respected, and that the data needed to make informed decisions is available.

Rwanda's Governance-Led Growth

Rwanda presents perhaps the most remarkable transformation story in Africa's recent history. Following the devastation of the 1994 genocide, Rwanda rebuilt its institutions with a deliberate emphasis on transparency, accountability, and fiscal discipline. The government invested heavily in public financial management systems, implemented rigorous budget reporting frameworks, and published detailed performance reports. The results were transformative: Rwanda became one of the fastest-growing economies in Africa, consistently attracting FDI well above its regional peers relative to GDP. The World Bank estimated that Rwanda's accession to the African Continental Free Trade Area would increase inward FDI by between 56% and 74%  a projection built on the foundation of Rwanda's credible institutions [8].

Rwanda's experience demonstrates that fiscal transparency is not merely a consequence of development; it is a precondition for it. By publishing credible budget execution data, Rwanda signalled to the world that it was a serious, disciplined manager of public resources and capital responded accordingly.

The Botswana Precedent

Botswana's sustained economic success over five decades is widely attributed to its disciplined management of diamond revenues and its commitment to transparent, rules-based fiscal governance. The country's consistent publication of budget reports and adherence to fiscal rules enabled it to build substantial sovereign wealth reserves, maintain investment-grade credit ratings, and attract diversified investment into non-extractive sectors. Botswana's example is particularly instructive for Nigeria, which, like Botswana, is endowed with significant natural resources but has struggled to translate resource wealth into broad-based development. The difference lies, in large part, in the quality and transparency of fiscal institutions.

The Cautionary Tales: Zimbabwe and Beyond

The consequences of fiscal opacity are equally instructive. Zimbabwe's descent into hyperinflation and economic collapse in the 2000s was precipitated in part by the government's manipulation and suppression of economic data. When the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe began publishing figures that bore no relationship to economic reality, investors fled, the currency collapsed, and the formal economy effectively ceased to function. The lesson is not that Zimbabwe's problems were caused solely by opacity, but that opacity removed the early-warning mechanisms that might have enabled corrective action by investors, by creditors, by civil society, and by the government itself.

Venezuela offers a parallel lesson. The systematic suppression of economic statistics, the manipulation of inflation data, and the refusal to publish credible fiscal accounts contributed to a catastrophic erosion of investor confidence, capital flight on a massive scale, and an economic implosion from which the country has yet to recover. When a government stops publishing honest numbers, it does not merely inconvenience analysts; it destroys the informational foundation upon which an economy operates.

1. Global Best Practices: How Fiscal Reporting Attracts and Retains Scarce Capital

Beyond Africa, the global evidence on the investment dividend of fiscal transparency is overwhelming.

New Zealand: The Gold Standard of Fiscal Reporting

New Zealand's Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1994 established one of the world's most rigorous frameworks for public financial management. The legislation requires the government to publish detailed fiscal strategy reports, budget economic and fiscal updates, and half-year economic and fiscal updates, all with comprehensive forward projections. A 2024 study published in the New Zealand Economic Papers found that this legislation reduced government spending uncertainty by between 32% and 46% [9]. This reduction in uncertainty is enormously valuable to investors, because uncertainty is the enemy of long-term capital commitment. By making the government's fiscal intentions predictable and verifiable, New Zealand's reporting framework has been a significant factor in its sustained ability to attract foreign investment and maintain low sovereign borrowing costs.

Chile: Fiscal Rules and Investment Confidence

Chile formally adopted a structural budget-balance fiscal rule in 2001 and enacted a Fiscal Responsibility Law in 2006. These frameworks, combined with rigorous quarterly reporting, have given Chile one of the most credible fiscal reputations in Latin America. The U.S. Department of State's 2025 Investment Climate Statement for Chile describes the country's level of fiscal transparency as "excellent," noting that information on the budget and fiscal policy is readily available and that the Pensions Reserve Fund provides a transparent mechanism for managing sovereign savings [10]. Chile's fiscal credibility has enabled it to maintain investment-grade credit ratings even during periods of commodity price volatility, and to attract the diversified, high-quality FDI that drives genuine economic transformation.

The IMF's Fiscal Transparency Code

The International Monetary Fund's Fiscal Transparency Code, the global benchmark for public financial management, identifies timeliness, comprehensiveness, and reliability of fiscal reporting as the three pillars of fiscal transparency. The Code explicitly links these pillars to macroeconomic stability, market confidence, and the ability to access international capital markets on favourable terms [11]. Countries that meet the Code's standards consistently demonstrate lower risk premiums, higher credit ratings, and greater resilience to external economic shocks.

Nigeria's current failure to publish quarterly budget reports places it in direct violation of these internationally recognized standards, further eroding the country's standing in global capital markets at a time when it can least afford such reputational damage.

1. The National Assembly's Complicity and the Failure of Oversight

The Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics must also draw attention to a dimension of this crisis that has received insufficient scrutiny: the role of the National Assembly. The legislature is constitutionally mandated to provide oversight of executive spending. The Joint Finance Committee of the National Assembly is specifically designated under the Fiscal Responsibility Act as a recipient of the quarterly budget implementation reports.

Yet the National Assembly has continued to approve fresh budgets and supplementary appropriations without demanding the publication of implementation reports for previous allocations. This raises a fundamental question about the integrity of the legislative process. How can lawmakers responsibly authorize the expenditure of trillions of Naira when they have not been provided with and have not demanded  the data showing how previous allocations were spent?

Legislative oversight that does not insist on compliance with statutory reporting requirements is not oversight; it is ceremony. It provides the appearance of accountability without the substance. The National Assembly must exercise its constitutional authority to compel the executive to comply with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, and to refuse to approve new appropriations until outstanding implementation reports are published.

VII. The Broader Governance Implications

The failure to publish budget implementation reports is symptomatic of a broader governance challenge that extends beyond the technical domain of public financial management. A government that creates laws and then refuses to obey them sends a signal that the rule of law is conditional that it applies to citizens but not to the state itself. This is corrosive to the foundations of democratic governance and to the confidence of every actor domestic and foreign who relies on the legal framework to protect their interests and investments.

The Fiscal Responsibility Commission, which is mandated to monitor and enforce compliance with the FRA, has been rendered effectively powerless by the absence of sanctions in the Act for the 54 identified offences [1]. This is a legislative gap that must be urgently addressed. A law without enforcement mechanisms is not a law; it is a suggestion. The National Assembly must amend the FRA to provide for meaningful sanctions, including personal liability for the officials responsible for non-compliance.

Furthermore, the concurrent execution of three overlapping budgets the 2025 budget, the 2024 supplementary budget, and uncompleted items from the 2024 main budget is itself a symptom of chronic budget implementation failure [1]. This situation demands greater transparency, not less. The government cannot credibly claim to be managing public finances responsibly while simultaneously withholding the very reports that would allow independent verification of that claim.

VIII. The Appeal: Resumption of Publication as a National Economic Imperative

The Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (LTDGTE) issues this appeal not in a spirit of political opposition, but in the spirit of economic responsibility and institutional integrity. Nigeria stands at a critical juncture. The government has articulated ambitious economic targets, including the aspiration to build a one-trillion-dollar economy. These targets cannot be achieved in an environment of fiscal opacity. Capital domestic and foreign will not commit to a jurisdiction where the government's financial conduct is invisible and unverifiable.

We therefore call upon:

The Federal Executive Council and the Budget Office of the Federation to immediately comply with Sections 30 and 50 of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 by publishing the outstanding QBIRs for Q3 2025, Q4 2025, and Q1 2026 without further delay, and to commit to timely publication of all future reports.

The National Assembly to exercise its oversight mandate by refusing to approve new appropriations until outstanding implementation reports are published, and to amend the Fiscal Responsibility Act to provide for meaningful sanctions for non-compliance.

The Fiscal Responsibility Commission to publicly demand compliance with the FRA and to engage civil society, the business community, and the international community in holding the government accountable to its statutory obligations.

The Business Community and Civil Society to make fiscal transparency a non-negotiable condition for their engagement with government, and to use every available legal and institutional mechanism to demand compliance with the law.

The International Investment Community to signal clearly to the Nigerian government that fiscal opacity is a material risk factor that affects investment decisions, and that the resumption of transparent reporting is a prerequisite for the restoration of investor confidence.

Conclusion: Transparency Is Not a Luxury; It Is the Foundation

The silence of the Budget Office is not a neutral administrative act. It is a choice a choice to operate in darkness, to deny citizens and businesses the information they are legally entitled to, and to undermine the institutional foundations upon which a modern economy must be built.

History teaches us, from the streets of Harare to the boardrooms of Caracas, from the bond markets of Buenos Aires to the investment summits of Kigali, that fiscal transparency is not a luxury that governments can afford to dispense with when it becomes inconvenient. It is the foundation upon which investor confidence, business planning, legislative oversight, and democratic accountability are built.

Nigeria's business community cannot plan without data. Nigeria's investors cannot commit without confidence. Nigeria's lawmakers cannot oversee without information. And Nigeria's citizens cannot hold their government accountable without the numbers.

The resumption of the Quarterly Budget Implementation Reports is, therefore, not merely a matter of legal compliance. It is a matter of economic survival, institutional integrity, and national honour. The Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics calls upon the Nigerian government to end the silence, obey the law, and restore the transparency that Nigeria's economy and Nigeria's people so urgently need.

This article is published by the Alliance for Economic Research and Ethics (LTDGTE), an independent organization committed to promoting evidence-based economic policy, institutional integrity, and ethical governance in Nigeria and across Africa.

References

11. West Africa Weekly. "For First Time in 15 Years Nigeria's Budget Office Fails to Publish Three Consecutive Quarterly Reports Under Tinubu." May 12, 2026. https://westafricaweekly.com/for-first-time-in-15-years-nigerias-budget-office-fails-to-publish-three-consecutive-quarterly-reports-under-tinubu/
12. Federal Republic of Nigeria. Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007. International Budget Partnership. https://internationalbudget.org/wp-content/uploads/Nigeria-FiscalResponsibilityAct2007-English.pdf
13. Abbas, S. M. Ali, F.J. Arias, Isabela Duarte, Arika Kayastha, Aiko Mineshima, and Ezgi O. Ozturk. "Fiscal institutions matter big time for foreign direct investment in developing economies." VoxEU, Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). April 18, 2026. https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/fiscal-institutions-matter-big-time-foreign-direct-investment-developing-economies
14. LinkedIn / AfricaPNG. "Nigeria's 13-Year FDI Decline: A Crisis of Investor Confidence." April 20, 2026. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/africapng_africap-marketintelligence-nigeriaeconomy-activity-7451934179732148224-EBTX
15. Brookings Institution. "Sovereign credit ratings and external debt in Africa." March 5, 2026. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/sovereign-credit-ratings-and-external-debt-in-africa/
16. International Budget Partnership. "Open Budget Survey: South Africa 2023." https://www.internationalbudget.org/open-budget-survey/country-results/2023/south-africa
17. S. Department of State. "2025 Investment Climate Statements: South Africa." https://www.state.gov/reports/2025-investment-climate-statements/south-africa
18. ODI / SITA. "Sectoral and fiscal impact of the AfCFTA in Rwanda." Mendez-Parra, M. 2023. https://odi.org/documents/8666/ODI-SITA-Report_Sectoral_and_fiscal_impact_of_the_AfCFTA_in_Rwanda_gITlYeG.pdf
19. Tanner, S. et al. "New Zealand's lauded fiscal legislation: has it reduced uncertainty?" New Zealand Economic Papers. April 25, 2024. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00779954.2024.2336559
20. S. Department of State. "2025 Investment Climate Statements: Chile." https://www.state.gov/reports/2025-investment-climate-statements/chile
21. International Monetary Fund. "Fiscal Transparency." IMF Fiscal Policies. https://www.imf.org/en/topics/fiscal-policies

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