MDAs and banks being listed for anti-graft agencies
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Banks are being listed along with Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) for sanction for failing to comply with Treasury Single Account (TSA) guidelines introduced by the federal government to stop financial corruption.
TSA was proposed in 2012 under the administration of Goodluck Jonathan and was fully implemented by Muhammadu Buhari to consolidate all inflows from all agencies of government into a single account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed announced the compilation of erring banks and MDAs at the inauguration of the TSA board in Abuja, per reporting by The Nation.
She said all banks have been directed “to transfer all remaining balances in the accounts of Federal Government owned MDAs in their custody without express exemption to the TSA.”
She recounted how, “in 2018, we conducted a post implementation compliance exercise to determine the extent to which MDAs and Deposit Money Banks complied with the Presidential directive on TSA of 7th August, 2015.
“The finding was that huge amounts of public funds were still trapped in commercial banks.”
Ahmed lamented that even at the end of the compliance exercise, “the banks have not been co-operating with the Consultants assigned to sweep these funds to the TSA.”
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List to be submitted to anti-graft agencies
Ahmed disclosed that the government is already “compiling the list of affected banks and MDAs for submission to anti-corruption agencies for enforcement.
“For the avoidance of doubt, except for selected accounts of NNPC and WAEC, no other MDA or fund of Federal Government is exempted from the TSA.”
Banks in doubt about the status of any MDA account with them are to “re-confirm from the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation.”
Ahmed stressed that generally speaking TSA use has been a pleasant experience.
“The centralisation of our banking arrangement has made it easier to determine government cash balances, reduce cost of borrowing, enhance liquidity, block leakages and improve internally generated revenue performance.”
Through TSA, the government has “automated direct deduction of operating surplus of eligible agencies. At the last count, 16 agencies are covered and more will be added in the coming months.
“Between January and October 2021, a total of N86 billion in revenue was generated through this means.
“Aggregate collection of N7 trillion was made from 22 million transactions between January and November 2021while N19 trillion worth of payments were processed from 20 million transactions within the same period.
“Other service providers should be accommodated in the TSA collection process provided they are integrated with Remita.
“The reason is that without such integration, it would be difficult to keep track of transactions in diverse, stand-alone collection applications.”
Ahmed said the government is aware of the challenges MDAs have faced since December 2020 over access to TSA bank statement and creation of service types for collection.
TSA board members
Members of the TSA Supervisory Board are:
- Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning (Chairman)
- Accountant General of the Federation (Deputy Chairman)
- CBN Deputy Governor (Operations)
- Debt Management Office Director General
- Representative of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation
- Federal Inland Revenue Service Chairman
- NNPC Chief Financial Officer
- Bureau for Public Service Reforms Director General
- Auditor General for the Federation
- TSA Director, Office of the Auditor General of the Federation (Secretary)