Ndubuisi Francis in Abuja
With the introduction of the Treasury Single Acount (TSA), the federal government saves N4.7 billion monthly as banks charges, the Accountant General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris disclosed wednesday
He spoke in Abuja at a two-day workshop on the TSA and other public financial management reforms.
According to him, prior to the introduction of the policy as part of the public financial management reforms, the sum of N4.7 billion was expended by the federal government as bank charges, interest on loans, and account maintenance fees, among other charges, noting that the withdrawal of the fund from banks under the TSA scheme had foreclosed charges on government funds as it now maintains a single account for all its agencies with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Through the policy, Idris noted that the government had been able to block inherent leakages and abuses which had been the hallmark of the public sector prior to the commencement of TSA in September 2015.
Besides blocking leakages, the AGF said the TSA scheme also assisted the government to overcome the burden of indiscriminate borrowings by the ministries, departments and (MDAs), thereby saving government a lot of bank charges associated with borrowings.
He said: “TSA has enabled us to make tremendous gains to the federal government and to the Nigerian economy. We have successfully eliminated multiple banking arrangements resulting in consolidation of over 20,000 bank accounts which were spread over Deposit Money Banks across the country.
“This has further brought about transparency and effective tracking of government revenues. It has also led to the blocking of leakages and abuse which characterised the public financial management before the implementation of the TSA.
“TSA has taken us out of the era of indiscriminate borrowings by MDAs and saved government the charges associated with those borrowings which hitherto amounted to N4.7bn monthly. I can therefore confidently assert that TSA has been beneficial to all stakeholders and the country as a whole.â€
According to the AGF, the workshop was part of efforts to increase the level of consciousness on why the federal government is carrying out the public finance management reforms, noting that a major objective of these reforms is to support the fight against corruption in the country.
On the payment of backlog of promotional arrears for civil servants, he explained that the government had commenced the process of making payments to those affected, noting that unlike in the past where funds were released to the various MDAs for onward disbursement to beneficiaries, a new approach had been adopted to check the rate of abuses of the process.
The accounts of those promoted with owed arrears, he stated, would henceforth be credited directly after all the necessary verification exercise, adding that about N13.2 billon had been provided for the payment of a backlog for promoted civil servants.
