Two weeks ago, London Bureau Chief Olatunde Kazeem, met with the Managing Director of Systemspecs, Mr John Obaro in Glasgow when he got the Award for Leadership in Technology by the African Forum Scotland and the Fellowship of the Centre for Africa Policy Research and Development in Scotland. On this occasion, he spoke on the raging controversy on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Senate’s recommendation on Remita
Can you share with us what has happened since the Senate intervened in your TSA contract and accused Systemspecs of fraud and also about the recommendation to cancel the contract?
We probably got too carried away by the success of the TSA that we did not bother about the political reaction to the new development that will be changing the way we do government business in Nigeria. We underestimated the possible opposition. Well, we knew there would be issues but we did not expect it to come from an angle in which we would be accused of fraud and of all those heavy words that were used. The worst we taught that would happen is that somebody will be keen to highlight the defect of Remita on TSA, if there is any. We were not prepared to be accused of fraud. That totally destabilised us because it was completely malicious and false.
When all of this started, the Senate believed they have got a thief but after all of their investigation, they realised there is nothing. But unfortunately, because of the noise they had made, they need to cover their face one way or another. They started by naming a committee “Abuse and Mismanagement of TSA.”
They used words like fraud etc before they started their investigation. So, in reality the one per cent on our contract is cheaper than what you would get anywhere. So, if you read through the Senate Report you would see that almost half of it is about struggling to argue that we had no contract on TSA. And yet, the first recommendation was to terminate the contract. And that certainly does not make Sense. So if there was no contract, where are you terminating the contract? Then they said don’t pay them one per cent, pay them up to N700 per transaction, so if you are sure there was no contract, then why are you recommending that anything should be paid?
So, what has happened to your fees six months after since the Central Bank of Nigeria on the orders of the Senate asked you to return about N3.8 billion which accounts for your service payment for the use of Remita in the Treasury Single Account?
We are still doing the job and up till date we are not getting paid. It’s not about our money refunded to the CBN, It is about the platform that is still being used today and we are not being paid. Yes we are expecting that someone should wake up and ensure a speedy closure of this problem. We have written to the CBN governor and the Ministry of Finance regarding these issues.
One option open to us going forward is the ridiculous offers of N500-N700 flat per transaction. The Senate have made the recommendations and with all due respect, they are non-practicable recommendation. The Senate said, for instance, that the CBN should terminate the contract without investigating any practical option. If they had investigated how feasible it is, then they would have known that it is not plug and play. This is something that took three to four years to get to where we are. And if your only reason for wanting to terminate it, is because of a disagreement on commercial figures, which is very contentious, then one would need to look at their motives, whether they really believe in the TSA vision or whether they are just trying to call a dog a bad name in order to hang it. Or is it that they want to destroy TSA and the easiest way to do this is to frustrate the technology behind it and clearly that is what they are trying to do. And that is why in everything we have done, we have tried to be very careful and not respond in anger. We believe that many objective Nigerians,especially the knowledgeable ones, would know a contract has to be respected.
Incidentally, I took a cab at the Glasgow airport to Glasgow city recently when I came in for my Scottish Award and fellowship, And I noticed that there would be a charge of five per cent on your card transaction. All of this are what we are offering in Nigeria for one per cent.
So, if anybody has any issue about the one per cent, are there no other ways of resolving the challenge? What created the crisis is because the president gave a specific date- September date last year that all accounts in the commercial banks be closed And everybody goes TSA in the Central Bank. Sitting balances that were in the commercial banks were mopped up and passed through TSA to the centre bank.
When the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation made an observation that the fees were high, we immediately said that we are open to a review of the rate, please call all the parties that agreed the price abinitio. When the CBN governor asked us to return the fees, that had been collected, in good faith, we returned them because we did not want a distraction to the success of the TSA. We returned it and wrote a fairly worded letter. Explaining why they should return the money to us.
Incidentally, I have been following the press in the last few days; one of the major benefits of this TSA is that before TSA, government money was sitting idle in commercial banks. Government would turn around to sell treasure bills at 15 per cent- Meaning that government was borrowing its own money at 15 per cent. Before now, the amount of fake receipt being presented to government is unbelievable. Before now, all that is required is for you to produce fake receipts. But now it cannot happen.
But I have to say that it is really challenging being in business in Nigeria. More so, if you come from a position where you say you want to be ethical, you don’t want to play dirty. It’s. A very complex situation, we continued to provide these services, even though you know we cannot continue indefinitely.
Are you open to the senator recommendation of multi player platform in the event that your contract is sustained?
It is a question of technology. However, doing it straightaway, when there should be consolidation of the resource will bring in more confusion. if a typical officer in the government office wants to look at the balance of TSA, and you are now saying you opens it up to X number of players, are you saying it should enter into X number of systems in order to get a single information or what.
And these systems would have different ways by which they operate. So you are now saying the government officials would learn how to operate not just one may be five. That certainly will create confusion. So the senate report with all due respect is just a compendium of impracticalities. Iam not too sure they have the competence to make the kind of assertions they are making. Leave this kind of jobs to professionals. So I dont think the senate is in a position to decide whether you are using a mono platform or multi platform for this kind of process. And they are not in a position to determine the rate to be used.
Take for instance, the N500-N700 rate per transaction. While that would sound good for the heavy sums, like one billion naira, however it is not sustainable given that a good number of payments to the government is about N5000 and we even have transactions that are N20. So with this example, government will go bankrupt. This is just laughable. What create this whole noise was because bulk figures were moved once. If for instance, somebody is moving one billion Naija, the processing fee at one per cent would come to N10 million, that raises a bell, and sounds alarming. But that was not the intention when the one per cent was being negotiated. These were isolated cases, and you can create an alarm bell to say all those heavy balances will have to be renegotiated. So essentially our one per cent are for day to day transaction.For instance, road safety arrests somebody and fines him N 5000. So, one per cent of that will be N50 which will be shared by all the parties to the collection. But because the system works on closing balances, which passes through the Office of the Accountant General, they say lets renegotiate. And we said fine. What else could we have done.
It is note worthy that you have such an eminent personality like Dr Christopher Kolade as your Chair, what role did he play during this face off with the Senate?
Dr Kolade has been our chair for nine years. Incidentally several years ago he stepped down from being chair of quite a number of companies. But he remained only with Systemspecs. We were happy with that because it is a confirmation of the values we shared. Many people who know Dr Kolade knows the value he stands for. We are happy that he remains our chair. You can call us the last man standing. You know his style, he is not the type that will use his name to barge around. So when this came up, he gave us a lot of counsel. On the day of the Senate hearing, he actually wanted to be there in person, unfortunately, the airline disappointed. He could not get a flight to come into Abuja. But thereafter, we worked with him to issue a press statement which was a good summary to all those searching for the truth, because we were very clear.
Dr Kolade kept reassuring us to remain upstanding no matter the pressures. And that is against the other counsels we were getting especially at those difficult period. We had a number of meetings in his house, and also formal board meetings in his office in which he gave his counsels.
His is well respected. And that is part of what earned him that respect he has till date.