At no point in the history of contemporary Nigeria has government been able to fully account for all its funds, at once, from a single consolidated view, until now. Thanks to the Treasury Single Account, TSA, which makes this possible. The TSA initiative is not only to the advantage of the federal government and its agencies, but to the benefit of the entire Nigerian populace. This is why it often comes as a surprise when unnecessarily jabs are thrown at the initiative.
Recently, union leaders in Nigerian higher institutions, including members of the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), have been coming forward with their anti-TSA positions. A number of them have posited that the initiative is largely to the detriment of higher institutions of learning in Nigeria. They claim that TSA has denied our higher institutions of the autonomy they supposedly enjoyed in the past.
In as much as one appreciates the position of the scholars, one bets to disagree with them. TSA has not denied any higher institution (or even any Ministry, Department and Agency, MDA) of its autonomy, neither has it restricted their access to endowments and grants. The main changes TSA introduced into the operations of MDAs, including tertiary institutions, are that they should hold all their accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), instead of holding them in commercial banks; that payments should be made electronically from these accounts directly into beneficiary accounts in commercial banks and other financial entities; and that all revenues and receipts of MDAs are paid into their accounts held at the CBN.
In specific terms, most publicly-owned tertiary institutions have accounts opened in their names at the CBN, and only the authorised signatories within these institutions are able to initiate, approve and consummate payment transactions, as long as the transactions are within the normal government accounting guidelines. There is no need for any institution to seek additional authorisation from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) or the CBN before making payments from these accounts. In addition, the MDA can now collect revenue via multiple channels such as point of sales [PoS], banks, debit and credit cards and mobile wallets, directly into its accounts.
TSA places the control of funds firmly in the hands of the management of tertiary institutions. One must also add that educational institutions are allowed to hold Project Accounts with the CBN, for the purpose of managing their external grants and third-party collaborations. All they need to do is to apply to OAGF for such accounts to be opened for them at the CBN. This level of transparency and security, which TSA brings, should in fact attract partners and robust funding for our tertiary institutions.
Also, the CBN payment gateway used for managing the TSA provides secure access to the funds, and permits full transaction tracking and visibility. With this in place, it has become increasingly difficult for any institution of government to play “Santa” with monies in its trust. Rather that bury their heads in the sand, our tertiary institutions should embrace and get schooled on the workings of TSA, and how they can improve its usage to better harness their institutions’ resources.
In some quarters, TSA has been blamed for the late disbursement of TETFund: The most likely cause of the late disbursement of TETFund is the panic of commercial banks who—unwilling to let go of the funds, primarily because of the interest accruing from it, and in collusion with the institutions—waited till the eleventh hour to transfer the funds to the CBN in compliance with long-standing directives. In the process, on the wee hour of the last day, some banks are believed to have transferred funds into the wrong accounts, and now face the challenges of reconciling on behalf of MDAs.
The position that TSA is responsible for the late payment of salaries is also untrue. The availability of the federal government’s share of the monthly Federation Account Allocation is a major factor in the timing of the payment of federal government salaries. This timing can only be helped by TSA which quickly makes government funds available in government accounts at the CBN from where salaries are paid, instead of being stuck in commercial banks.
According to the ASUU Coordinator (Ibadan zone), Prof. Josiah Ajiboye, “the TSA is a very good policy. Its advantages far outweigh its disadvantages, especially when it concerns government bureaucracies.” If this is indeed true, shouldn’t we be looking for ways to make it better, instead of clamouring for whole scale disbandment or subversive waivers that have jeopardised similar national interests in the past?
The implementation of TSA started four years ago under the Jonathan-led administration. In its wake, a series of stakeholder workshops were organised by OAGF to engage affected parties. MDAs had the opportunity to make representations to guide its delivery, including how TSA can be implemented to augment their operations. However, many MDAs believed that the scheme would never come to fruition and, so, did not give the required attention.
Others decided to challenge the policy and sought to be exempted from TSA on spurious grounds. Unfortunately, many tertiary institutions took this path and were caught in the hop when the Buhari administration mandated the full implementation of TSA in September 2015.
In many enviable countries around the world, government-owned institutions are not allowed to keep funds in commercial banks. However, in Nigeria, we have become addicted to this practice. The banks trade with these funds with no benefits, whatsoever accruing to government. Whereas, it is widely known that direct benefits usually accrue to some members of the management of the institutions for keeping such funds in commercial banks. Could this be why some people want the practice to continue?
It is reported that, before the full implementation of TSA, federal government agencies operated about 20,000 accounts with commercial banks. Some of these accounts were merely opened in the name of the MDAs, but were not fully documented, were operated independent of the MDA, and were sometimes ‘lost’ when there was any change in management. To whom did the interests that accrued in the passage of time go? To the government? No! TSA has blocked this loophole, which hitherto facilitated unprecedented thefts and mindless corruption, even in our ivory towers.
The salaries of workers in our public higher institutions are paid by the federal government, so are their pensions, their running cost and their emoluments. The agitation of the aggrieved union leaders in our tertiary institutions could be interpreted to mean that they want to enjoy so much benefit from government, but are unwelcoming to transparency.
They must note that government only wants them to be accountable for the monies they get; government does not want to spend it on their behalf. It is either they need to be better informed; have intentionally closed their eyes to the truth; or are too accustomed to the old regime of free money and uncurbed access to slush funds, in which transparency was literally non-existent. Universities and polytechnics are important entities of the Nigerian state but are not bigger than the nation.
Emmanuel Agha, is an e-payment expert and writes from Lagos
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