…As Budget Office Orders MDAs To Submit Personnel Cost Proposals
The Federal Government has initiated moves to submit the 2027 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly this month as part of its efforts to improve the efficiency of yearly budgets in terms of timely implementation and benefits to the country.
In the ‘Federal Government of Nigeria 2027 Personnel Budget Call Circular’ dated September 4, 2026 signed by the Director-General of the Budget Office of the Federation, Tanimu Yakubu, and published in the office website was directed at all the MDAs.
The circular provided guidelines for the MDAs in preparing and submitting their personnel cost proposals for the 2027 fiscal year.
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The Budget Office confirmed that the draft 2027-2029 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper had been concluded since July to facilitate the early presentation of the spending plan.
The circular partly reads: “As you are aware, the 2027-2029 draft Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper was concluded by July 2026 in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 to facilitate the submission of 2027 Budget to the National Assembly by September 2026.”
Ahead of the September target, the Budget Office has fixed 4pm on Friday, September 18, as the deadline for MDAs to submit hard and soft copies of their 2027 personnel budget proposals and accompanying information.
Also, the circular introduced a new requirement for the MDAs to submit their enabling laws, adding that “to further strengthen the budget preparation process and mitigate against any entry of unestablished agencies in the FGN Budget, it has become compulsory for MDAs to submit budget proposals along with their respective Establishment Acts as failure to do so, may lead to rejection.”
In addition to requiring the MDAs to prove their legal existence, the Budget Office introduced tighter controls over personnel expenditure, recruitment and payroll management for the 2027 fiscal year, warning them to avoid making salary and allowance provisions for people who are not legitimate Federal Government employees.
The Office consequently directed MDAs to validate their payrolls against information obtained from the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System and the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System, clarifying that no personnel cost provision will be made in the 2027 budget for any serving Federal Government employee who is not captured on IPPIS or enrolled on GIFMIS, unless specifically exempted by the appropriate authority.
In addition, it directed that the MDAs must also use only salary structures and allowances approved by the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission and verify the grade levels and steps of their employees, including provisions for annual increments, and banned them from budgeting for anticipated promotions.
The Budget Office clarified that provisions for promotions taking effect during 2027 would instead be made centrally under the Payment for Promotion and Salary Arrears in the Service-Wide Vote.
It further directed the MDAs to retain newly promoted officers on their budgeted grade levels and steps throughout the year once the personnel budget has been finalised, with promotions during 2027 to be reflected when preparing the 2028 personnel budget, adding that the salary pay point of an officer transferred or posted after the conclusion of the 2027 personnel budget will remain with the MDA where the employee’s personnel cost was originally provided until the 2028 budget is prepared.
The Office also stated that for new recruitment, MDAs must provide supporting documents, including financial clearance, letters of first appointment and relevant recruitment waivers or clearances, cautioning that it will not entertain claims for salary shortfalls or payroll lock-outs resulting from unauthorised recruitment from any MDA.
In addition, the circular prohibited the MDAs from including non-executive board members, consultants, contract staff, youth corps members, industrial attaches, outsourced service providers and legionnaires in their nominal rolls because they are not permanent or pensionable Federal Government employees.
The Budget Office disclosed that allowances for youth corps members would be provided centrally under the budget of the National Youth Service Corps, while MDAs may only pay additional allowances to corps members from their overhead provisions.
The Office further introduced additional controls for the health and education sectors, particularly over outsourced workers, interns and consultants.
It stated: “The staff of outsourced service providers must not be included in the nominal roll. Inclusion of staff of outsourced service providers in MDAs payroll will henceforth be regarded as willful fraudulent action, and shall be reported to relevant authorities accordingly.”
The Budget Office also prohibited the multiple capture of the same consultant or lecturer on the nominal rolls of different federal health and educational institutions, stressing that where duplication is discovered, the individual will be removed from the payrolls of institutions other than the person’s primary place of employment.
The circular instructed federal health institutions to comply with approved ceilings and quotas for interns and honorary consultants, while registration or licence numbers of interns must be provided for authentication before they can be admitted into the budget; and that the recruitment, deployment, administration and budgetary provisions for house officers and nursing interns will also be handled centrally by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria and the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, respectively.
The Budget Office warned that hospitals that directly recruit or post house officers and nursing interns without recourse to the councils would be liable for unauthorised recruitment, with sanctions to be applied to the chief medical director or medical director.
The circular also introduced measures to improve personnel expenditure monitoring and the Budget Office hinted that it would deploy a centralised Personnel Cost Monitoring Dashboard linked to IPPIS and GIFMIS, enabling MDAs to compare actual expenditure with budget provisions in real time.
It maintained that requests for salary and promotion arrears would be processed quarterly by a standing committee domiciled in the Budget Office, while a Payroll Discrepancy Resolution Committee will meet monthly to address differences between information submitted by MDAs and records on IPPIS and GIFMIS.
The Office also directed the MDAs to constitute joint human resources and budget personnel cost teams to improve coordination between staffing decisions and budget submissions, and that they should submit their third-quarter personnel budget performance review reports by September 30, 2026, to guide future personnel planning.
Similarly the circular instructed the MDAs to make provisions for nutrition-related projects and programmes as well as Early Childhood Development programmes, while monitoring actual personnel costs throughout the implementation of the 2027 budget and reporting discrepancies to the Budget Office.
The Office further required ministers or chief executives and accounting officers of the MDAs to initial every page of the hard copies of their 2027 personnel budget proposals and additional information templates and certify the accuracy of the information submitted.
The latest strict requirements set for the MDAs are not unconnected with the recent frauds in the public service, especially on the existence of fake agencies that were budgeted for in the fiscal year 2026.
An example was the case of the scandal involving the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC), which has one Adeniyi Adeyemi as its Director-General, and nwas allocated about N1.3bn in the 2026 budget despite its illegality about its legal existence.
Following its investigations, the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) uncovered two additional fake government agencies linked to Adeniyi Adeyemi, the self-proclaimed Director-General of the PFIPC.
