Treasury single account

Treasury Single Account (TSA) is a financial policy introduced by the federal government of Nigeria in 2012^[1] to consolidate all inflows from the country's ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) by way of deposit into commercial banks, traceable into a single account at the Central Bank of Nigeria.^[2]

Background

The Treasury Single Account policy was established in order to reduce the proliferation of bank accounts operated by MDAs and to promote financial accountability among governmental organs. The compliance of the policy faces challenges from majority of the MDAs.^[3] The commercial banks in the countries have lost over 2 trillion Naira worth of deposit with full implementation of this policy.^[4][5] Meanwhile, the bankers committee of the country has declared their support for the policy.^[6]

Treasury Single Account and case of fraud

The operation of TSA has been tagged as a fraud; this was the conclusion of Senator Dino Melaye. He contested the alleged outrageous commission of 25 billion Naira received by SystemSpecs, the organisation in charge of the operation of TSA. His position necessitated the National Assembly of Nigeria (NAN) to summon a committee of enquiry to investigate the operation of the project since its inception. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in the same vein, requested the return of all the commission charged and received by SystemSpecs.^[7] However, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) through the office of The Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed described as rumor the information flying around that TSA is a project meant to siphon the Nigeria treasury and also that the 1% being charged as commission by SystemSpecs can't be justified.^[8] The minister in his statement cleared the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari from the signing of the contract that led to the operation of TSA^[9] The platform owner of the project, SystemSpecs, explained the distribution of the 1% commission charged as a portion being shared between SystemSpecs, commercial banks and CBN in the ratio of 50:40:10 respectively.^[10]

On 11 November 2015, Senator Melaye, representing Kogi West, requested that a panel of enquiry should be set up to investigate the operation of TSA. By his submission, the use of Remita as a collection medium is against the lay down principle in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria stated in section 162 (1) that “the federation shall maintain a special account to be called the federation account into which all revenues collected by the government of the federation except the proceeds from the personal income tax of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the ministry or department of government charged with foreign affairs and the residents of the FCT, Abuja.” He claimed the constitution only recognised a banking institution to be the collector of government funds, therefore since Remita is not a bank, the establishment of such platform to collect government fund is against the dictate of the constitution. He also alleged the total inflow of 1% commission allegedly charged and received by SystemSpecs for all revenue collected on behalf of the government from the various ministries, departments and agencies to be 25 billion Naira as of November, 2015. He claimed the fee is a fraud and must be returned to the account of the Central Bank of Nigeria.^[11]

According to the daily newspaper Vanguard Nigeria in her letter dated 27 October 2015, the CBN instructed SystemSpecs to return all the revenue made so far on the contract.^[12]

In another development, the Premium Times reported a counter claim by Ibrahim Muazu, the director of communication of CBN said Dino Melaye's position was "completely misleading.” “That is false. That is false,” “It is grossly exaggerated. We are talking of one per cent. What is one per cent of the money? Have we collected up to a trillion? That is a completely misleading information. Even at the beginning of the TSA, the estimation of all the movement of federal government funds into the account is 1.2 trillion Naira...”.^[11]

The Ekiti state governor Ayo Fayose accused the federal government of Nigeria of using the fund collected through TSA to finance the Bayelsa and Kogi state gubernatorial election.^[13] Fayose also rejected a call by the federal government of Nigeria to attend a meeting conveyed to deliberate on the operation of this system among the state government. He said in Vanguard that "From all intent and purposes, this TSA policy is aimed at recouping money spent on the last general elections by the APC, as well as raise money for future elections, especially the Kogi and Bayelsa States gubernatorial polls. He claimed it was also meant to enrich some individuals for doing virtually nothing and that can be seen from the discovery of N25 billion that already accrued to just a single company in one month"^[14]

The CBN in an attempt to justify their position released a letter to the press titled “Commencement of Federal Government independent revenue collection under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) initiative”. In this letter, the CBN debunked all the allegations made by Melaye as being a gateway for misleading the people of Nigeria.^[15]

In a fresh report by Vanguard on the 9th of December 2015, the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) Ahmed Idris and the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele denied being privy to the agreement signed by SystemSpecs. The (AGF) said "since my assumption as (AGF) no monies has been sent via the OAGF. There was no agreement between the OAGF and the Central bank, I am not part and my office is not part of this payment. ... We have not engaged anybody and have not paid anybody, I have also said what I know."^[16][17]

References

General references

• nigeria guardian news. "TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT: Giving Life To Jonathan's 'Dead' Policy Directives". Retrieved 19 October 2015.