Despite the huge revenues oil generated under past administrations, the economy was in shambles when President Muhammadu Buhari took over last May.
Although it was called the largest economy in Africa, it had minimal or no impact on the life of the ordinary man on the street.
Infrastructural decay was the order of the day in the various sectors of the economy.
The main reason for the poor state of the economy was traceable to the massive treasury looting and mismanagement in the country.
The treasury, which was to hold resources for the commonwealth and benefits of Nigerians, was leaking from various points into private pockets.
The situation was so bad that Buhari had to raise the alarm on assumption of office that he met almost an empty treasury.
Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) had to declare that it will take some time for the mess left behind by the 16 years rule of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be cleared.
Only time will tell how long it will now take to clear the mess and fix the economy for the man on the street to start feeling the positive impact of the CHANGE agenda of the Buhari administration.
To stop the trend, several steps, however, have been taken by the new administration in the past ten months to patch the leaking treasury and block conduit pipes some fraudulent Nigerians have been using to siphon money into their pockets.
The implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) by Buhari, which is one of the measures taken so far, will be the main focus of this write-up.
TSA is one of the financial policies being implemented to consolidate all inflows from all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the country by way of deposit into Commercial Banks traceable into a single account at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
The policy, which was aimed at reducing proliferation of bank accounts operated by MDAs and also to promote financial accountability among all organs of the government, was introduced under the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
But due to lack of political will and other factors, implementation of the TSA was not thoroughly followed under Jonathan.
Even with opposition from majority of the MDAs, Buhari ensured full compliance with the policy by the MDAs from the 15th of September, 2015.
He then brought on board Mrs. Kemi Adeosun on the 11th of November, 2015 as the Minister of Finance to propel the TSA policy among other assignments.
The London-born Kemi Adeosun, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from the University of East London and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Financial Management from the University of London, is also a member of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants, England and Wales, as well as Nigeria.
She has worked with British Telecom Company, London, Goodman Jones, London, London Underground Limited, Prism Consulting, the Price Waterhouse Coopers, London.
The Minister has also worked with Chapel Hill Denham Management and Quo Vadis Partnership.
Her last appointment before becoming a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was serving as Commissioner of Finance in Ogun State from 2011 to 2015.
One of her achievements in Ogun State was the implementation of TSA which saved the state billions of naira.
Speaking with State House correspondents, Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun had said: “Look at the Treasury Single Account (TSA), I’m happy to report that Kaduna did and we did that in August, 2011 in Ogun State.
“That was the first thing I did when I came into office and we moved from about N730 million to over N6 billion under these four years.
“And I’m happy that people are now seeing the importance of doing things the way it should be in line with world best practice,” he added
Adeosun has been able to transfer her professional skills in handling the TSA at the state level to the federal level in her over four months tenure as the Finance Minister.
As at December 2015, TSA at the federal level has yielded N2.2 trillion.
During a meeting with Nigerians resident in London in February, Buhari had said: “So we enforced TSA and by the end of December, coming to January this year, that is last month, we mopped up more than N2.2 trillion.”
The implementation of the policy at the federal level has also streamlined the over 200 bank accounts been operated by the Federal Government and its agencies and parastatals.
Before the implementation of the policy by the Buhari’s administration, most government agencies that generate revenue always made sure they retired all revenue generated as expenses and management cost, leaving nothing in the account. That practice has now been halted.
Even with the support of the bankers committee for the policy, the commercial banks in the country have lost over N2 trillion worth of deposit with full implementation of the policy.
Besides the achievements being recorded under the policy, it will not be out of place to scrutinize further the past records in order to trace ‘who’ and ‘who’ had been involved in diverting government revenues to private pockets.
The roles played by the commercial banks under the past administrations, which might have aided such diversion, should also be looked into.
All those indicted should be made to face the law as a way of deterrence to others.
