Six years into the full-scale implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) aimed at ensuring greater accountability of government resources and blocking leakages, the revenue accruing to the government still bleeds Daily Trust findings show.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on August 7, 2015, directed that every Federal Government Ministry, Department or Agency (MDA) pay into a Treasury Single Account (TSA) for all government revenues, incomes, and other receipts.
According to the directive, this measure was specifically aimed at promoting transparency and facilitating compliance with sections 80 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution.
The directive said all receipts due to the federal government or any of its agencies must be paid into TSA or designated accounts maintained and operated in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), except otherwise expressly approved.
Thus, the TSA is a unified structure of government bank accounts that gives a consolidated view of government cash resources.
The TSA is part of the Public Financial Management (PFM) reforms under the World Bank-funded Economic Reforms and Governance Project (ERGP) adopted in 2004 but could not be fully implemented until when President Buhari took over.
The PFM reforms were in part designed to address impediments to effective cash management within the federal government.
Daily Trust reports that before the implementation of the TSA came into effect, many government agencies maintained dozens of accounts in different banks.
Also, heads of such agencies had absolute control over such accounts and spend with executive feat. In some cases, some of them used such accounts as conduits for syphoning monies they generated from the services they offered or statutory funds received.
It was also difficult for anti-corruption agencies or external auditors to track such infractions.
However, the framers of the TSA said when fully implemented, it will block such leakages, enhance transparency and help government track incomes and expenditures for the betterment of the citizens.
Read More: https://dailytrust.com/leakages-continue-despite-tsa-implementation
