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Tag: TSA

  • TSA: we didn’t hide any fund, Keystone Bank insists

    Keystone Bank Limited has declared it has never hidden any fund belonging to the federal government or its agencies.

    The management of the bank was reacting to a ruling by Justice Chuka Obiozor, asking seven banks to remit the various sums allegedly being kept illegally in their custody to the designated federal government’s Asset Recovery dollars account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    The affected banks are United Bank for Africa (UBA), Diamond Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, First Bank Limited, Fidelity Bank Plc, Keystone Bank Limited and Sterling Bank Plc.

    Some of these banks have however disputed the allegation.

    Keystone Bank, in a statement yesterday, said: “Keystone Bank has never illegally hidden any amount of money belonging to the federal government or any of its agencies.

  • TSA: No hidden funds in Keystone Bank – Management

    TSA: No hidden funds in Keystone Bank – Management

    Keystone Bank Limited has denied concealing funds meant to be transferred into the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account.

    The Federal High Court in Lagos had on Thursday ordered seven commercial banks to temporarily remit a total of $793.2m allegedly hidden by them in contravention of the Federal Government’s TSA policy.

    But Keystone Bank, in a statement on Friday said, “In response to the news making the rounds that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had made an order directing Keystone Bank Limited to remit the sum of $17m allegedly illegally kept in its custody to the TSA, we wish to state that Keystone Bank has never illegally hidden any amount of money belonging to the Federal Government or any of its agencies.

    “Details of all Federal Government funds in custody of Keystone Bank had always been fully disclosed to all relevant Federal Government agencies and at no time did Keystone Bank collude or ‎conspire with any official of the Federal Government to disobey the Federal Government directives on the TSA.

    The lender informed its stakeholders that it would not conduct itself in breach of the laws or policies of the government, including the TSA policy.

    “We are taking appropriate steps to respond to the issues raised in the Court Order,” the bank added.

  • Some banks are yet to remit state revenues to TSA, says Minister

    Some banks are yet to remit state revenues to TSA, says Minister

    One or two unnamed commercial banks are yet to remit state revenues to the Federal Government in line with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, Finance Minister Mrs Kemi Adeosun, has said.

    “We have written to all banks,” Adeosun told CNBC, adding that one or two lenders were yet to move revenues to the new account.

    In 2015, Nigeria decided to move government revenues to a TSA account at the Central Bank as part of an anti-corruption drive, draining the banking system of liquidity.

    The TSA is a bank account or a set of linked bank accounts through which the government transacts all its receipts and payments and gets consolidated view of its financial status at any given time.

    The TSA policy – initiated by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan but implemented by his successor, President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration – stipulates that all government  taxes, levies and tariffs should be deposited with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    The funds would subsequently be disbursed to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) based on approved rules to ensure accountability in the management of government resources.

    Several attempts to adopt TSA in the past were unsuccessful. Reason: the CBN lacked the technological-know-how to manage the retail aspect of the policy. An e-technology platform, Real-time gross settlement systems (RTGS), initially expected to drive the payment leg of the TSA policy in Nigeria was unsuitable for retail payments.

    The implementation of the TSA policy has significantly reduced government’s debt servicing costs, lowered liquidity reserve needs, and fostered effective use of surplus cash.

    Beyond transparency and accountability, the TSA introduces economy and efficiency into overall management of public finances and this will in the long run, lead to effectiveness of the government spending since it places the government in a better position to realise overall policy goals.

  • Fed Govt mulls using TSA to fund budget

    The Federal Government is planning to use a portion of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) balance to fund the national  budget, the Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris, told reporters yesterday in Abuja.

    Speaking at the retreat on TSA, he said: “The policy has helped to reduce the amount of borrowed funds by government, there is need to have a mechanism that would allow the balances in TSA to be used in a profitable manner  for  budget execution. The implementation of the policy has been successful, there is need to harness the immense potentials of the initiative in budgeting and debt management.

    “This is one of the critical aspects of our reforms. Beyond mere cash management, there is need to look particularly in this time of recession to see how best we can deploy the large balances that we have been keeping with CBN (Central bank of Nigeria) for the betterment of the economy.”

    He said all the stakeholders will continue to talk and  would be advising government appropriately. “It is not something that we will do tomorrow; we have to sit on how we deploy them profitably into very efficient and very viable instruments. So all that needs to be worked out,” Idris said.

    He also said there is improvement on deployment of technology and modern applications to solve all the challenges that are being encountered.

    “Right now, we are talking with some programme developers, because we observed that for teaching hospitals and universities, there are endowment funds, there are third party funds and there are funds that are not meant as holding funds. We deploy technology to seep out those funds, separate (them) from normal conventional revenues,” he explained.

    Idris reiterated that his Office has stopped N4.7 billion in cost of keeping old ministies, department and agencies (MDAs) accounts which attracted large cost of borrowing through over drafts, and other charges monthly.

    As a result, the OAGF has “been able to track government revenue; we have been able to see revenue inflow and that has helped us to harness our revenue in that direction. We have been able to stop leakages because some of these over 20,000 accounts were not even known to some agencies that owned them, and TSA has brought about transparency in terms of delivery.”

    Reacting to concerns that the implementation of the TSA has forced many banks to sack workers, Idris said: “Banks are never created to hold public funds or government funds virtually for free. No! That is not banking. Nowhere in the world are banks relying on public funds to survive. So, banks are now becoming more innovative and that innovation is what will bring them back to business. I believe very soon, retrenchment in the sector will be a thing of the past and they will be looking for people to employ because they are now focused on doing what they are supposed to do.”

    Since the policy was fully implemented in September 2015, about N5.244 trillion has accrued to the account and everyday the account keeps swelling.

    The retreat was attended by stakeholders in the private and public sectors of the economy.

  • TSA: Govt agencies rake in N13b daily

    TSA: Govt agencies rake in N13b daily

    • Account swells to N5.244b with merger of 20,000 bank accounts

    Federal Government agencies rake in an average of N13 billion daily from the Treasury Single Ac
    count (TSA), Acting President Yemi Osinbajo said yesterday.

    Represented by the Special Adviser, Economic Matters to the President, Office of the Vice President, Dr. Adeyemi Dipeolu, at a two-day retreat to review TSA implementation in Abuja, said there was now improved visibility of government revenues and cash flows.

    “Now the position is clear; with an average of N13 billion accruing to all government agencies every single working day. This improves decision making and engenders efficiency in public financial management,” he said.

    Another key outcome of the implementation of TSA he said, has been the elimination of the revenue and expenditure float. Before TSA, it took an average of 28 days to access cash after the revenue has been collected through commercial banks and about 21 days for MDAs to access their budgetary allocations after release from Treasury. These timing differences which adversely affected budget implementation have now been eliminated, he added.

    The Acting President was happy that the implementation of TSA has led to significant removal of ways and means financing costs that were depleting resources available for service delivery through budget implementation.

    With these development, Osinbajo said “the economy is set to reap the full benefits of blocking the leakages in revenue collection that hitherto fuelled corruption and impaired growth.”

    This improved transparency, he said, now “discourages would-be offenders as information technology solutions deployed as a result of TSA implementation, means that there are no more hiding places.’’

    He said: There is more to be done to harness the benefits of TSA implementation. For instance, the reforms we have started with regard to budget preparation must continue to completion. Ideally, the budget should be comprehensive and transparent and as much as possible enacted before the beginning of the financial year.

    “Since most of the cash resources moved into TSA are extra budgetary harvesting, the fruits of TSA implementation would entail that public resources be allocated in a manner that would enable total fungibility of cash.”

    In her address, the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun said as at February 10, the total inflow of funds through the mop-up and direct debits by CBN into the TSA amounted to N5.244 trillion.

    Mrs. Adeosun, who was represented by the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), said: “The implementation of TSA has brought about considerable gains to the federal government and to the Nigerian economy.”

    Since this administration commenced full implementation of the TSA programme over a year ago, government, the finance minister said has “successfully eliminated multiple banking arrangements, resulting into consolidation of over 20,000 bank accounts; which were spread over Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) across the country.”

    This she said has further brought about transparency and effective tracking of government revenues, in addition to “blocking of leakages and abuse, which characterised the public finance management before implementation of TSA.”

    TSA, she said has taken us out of the era of indiscriminate borrowings by MDAs and saved government, charges associated with those borrowings which amounted to an average of N4.7 billion monthly prior to full implementation of TSA.

    Adeosun explained that “TSA needs to go beyond mere cash management, we should explore the inherent potential of TSA and identify most economically viable options of resource utilization and deployment particularly under the present economic recession.”

  • TSA battles despite rising benefits

    TSA battles despite rising benefits

    Sixteen months after the Treasury Single Account (TSA) implementation, the government has saved over N4.3 trillion. It has also harmonised the inflow of revenues into the national purse. These were unattainable until SystemSpecs deployed Remita-electronic payment software to drive the TSA project. The policy, which has irked many public sectors previously benefiting from the old order, is however, promoting transparency and efficiency in public accounting system, writes
    COLLINS NWEZE.

    The face of the public accounting system has changed for the better. Many thanks to the full implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) scheme, which for years remained in the pipeline until the Federal Government allowed it to run in September 2015.

    Before the coming of TSA, handling of the government’s receipts and payments was complex with billions of naira that could have been re-injected into system to lie idle for months in numerous bank accounts while government parastatals borrow from same banks for their operations. The loans came at exorbitant interest rates, and repayment timelines were  frustrating.

    The TSA is a bank account or a set of linked bank accounts through which the government transacts all its receipts and payments and gets consolidated view of its financial status at any given time.

    Nigeria was in that financial management mess until government approved the full implementation of TSA adopting Remita, electronic payment software developed by SystemSpecs to drive the scheme.  Launched in 2006, Remita is an electronic platform that helps the government, corporate organisations, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and individuals to make and receive payments without stress. It aggregates multiple bank accounts, giving customers the ability to perform complete e-Transactions.

    The TSA policy – initiated by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan but implemented by his successor President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration – stipulates that all government taxes, levies and tariffs should be deposited in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

    The funds would subsequently be disbursed to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) based on approved rules to ensure accountability in the management of government resources.

    Presenting a paper at a workshop organised in Abuja by the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the World Bank, Prof. Stephen Ocheni said achieving  efficient allocation of resources and the stabilisation of the business cycle remained great challenges facing most parts of the world, particularly developing countries like Nigeria.

    In the paper obtained by The Nation and titled: “Treasury Single Account: A catalyst for public financial management in Nigeria”, Ocheni of Public Sector Accounting, Kogi State University, Anyigba, said: “An important factor for efficient management and control of government’s cash resources is a unified structure of government banking.

    “Such unified banking arrangements should be designed to minimise the cost of government borrowing and maximise the opportunity cost of cash resources. This requires that cash received is made available for carrying out government’s expenditure programmes and making payments in a timely manner.”

    The Buhari administration has initiated and implemented the TSA and other economic policies for better management of national resources and the fight against corruption.  Besides the TSA, the government also introduced the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), Automated Accounting Transaction Recording and Reporting System (ATRRS), Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System (IPPIS), International Public Sector Accounting Standard (IPSAS), among others to promote public financial management systems.

    The government began TSA implementation with the e-Payment component in April 2012 and its e-collections components followed in January, last year. In September 15, 2015, the government set a deadline for full compliance with the policy by all MDAs.

    According to Ocheni, the policy facilitates better fiscal and monetary policy coordination as well as better reconciliation of fiscal and banking data, which in turn improves the quality of fiscal information. The TSA also cuts the debt servicing costs and eradicates financial misappropriation in the public sector.

    His words: “The full implementation of the TSA will not be hurting banks. It will only hurt establishments that purport and pretend to be banks but have failed to understand banking and do what bankers do elsewhere’’.

    However, despite the benefits, many government agencies and universities have kicked against the TSA. Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASSU) President Prof Biodun Ogunyemi had complained that the TSA was retarding the progress of universities and promised to fight the government on the matter. He said the policy has made it impossible for universities to draw research grants, run programmes based on endowment and transfer funds voted for staff development in universities locally and overseas.

    “All our appeals to government to exempt universities from the TSA regime have fallen on deaf ears. Because of our abiding commitment to defending and protecting the university system, ASUU will go to any length to resist the continued implementation of TSA in our universities,” he said

    Also, the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta (FUNAAB) claimed last year that the TSA led to delay in accessing $2 million grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Funded Cassava Adding Value Project (CAVA).

    The institution was haggling with the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation (OAGF) on how to resolve the quagmire while the funds meant to be channeled were suffering.

    Managing Director, SystemSpecs, John Tani Obaro said before Remita was developed, the company had a software solution called Human Manager, which was developed for the processing of payroll only.

    “The need to automate the payroll process end to end, compelled us into developing the Remita software, to enable organisations that use Human Manager payroll software to do a lot of things simultaneously, beyond just salary payroll, to include payment of taxes, loans, pensions, cooperative deductions, among others. It was designed in such a way that it could address several payment systems from the press of a single button,” he said.

    Speaking further, he said after the first phase of development, SystemSpecs took part in pitching for a multinational company using Remita.

    “It was at that stage we realised the need to develop software that could handle several payment systems, including vendor payment and we went back to the drawing board to add vendor payment to Remita, thereby expanding the features of the software”.

    “Today, Remita does beyond salaries and vendor payments system, because we have added financial collections to it. We have also raised the collection process to another level, such that once a customer is signed up on the Remita platform, that customer could receive funds from anybody that has a credit or debit card,” he said.

    “Information is power and one of the ways to control finances is to have information about the finances. That is what Remita was able to make available to all our users. The Federal Government, for instance, has several ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and all of these had over 17,000 bank accounts scattered in various banks, making it difficult for government to know the cash position of all MDAs. But with Remita, government now has good information about the position of government money seated in the TSA that is controlled by the Central Bank of Nigeria on behalf of the Federal Government. So government now has information on the total amount of government money in its account and government also has information of the exact amount belonging to each MDA in the TSA account,” he stated.

    On the TSA, CBN’s Banking Supervision Director, Mrs Tokunbo Martins agreed that the policy regime triggered some unintended consequences, affecting the operations of banks, especially regarding deposit depletion, asset quality, decrease in revenues and liquidity stress.

    She put the aggregate deposit transferred to the CBN from the inception of the TSA regime to March last year at N2.67 trillion. The total, which represents 15.14 per cent of the total deposits of MDBs of N17.63 trillion as at April 30, constitutes the volume of deposits “lost” by banks as fallout of the implementation of the TSA regime.

    Mrs. Martins said: “This loss impacted banks differently in line with the proportion of their balance sheet that was sustained with Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) deposits.

    “Due to its large size and low cost, Federal Government of Nigeria deposits were a huge source of revenue for banks. Although specific data on revenue attributable to FGN deposits is not available, a good proxy is the yield on Treasury Bills, which is currently around 14 per cent.”

    She made this known at the CBN-Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC) continuous education programme for directors of banks and other financial institutions in Lagos.

    Mrs. Martins said assuming the entire government deposits were invested by the banks in Treasury Bills, at the current yield of 14 per cent, it would generate interest income of about N374 billion for the banks. The figure, she said, provides an indication of revenue that is no longer available to commercial banks due to introduction of TSA.

    She explained that based on the large quantum of revenue earned from government deposits, majority of commercial banks had created teams with responsibility for mobilising public sector funds.

    Her words: “These teams, which were large and significant, were in some cases directly supervised by top management staff. The introduction of the TSA regime and resultant depletion in government deposits and related revenue has made these teams unprofitable and their existence untenable. Therefore, most banks had scaled back or disbanded the teams and in extreme cases, released staff deployed to the teams.”

    The CBN director said the TSA regime impacted the liquidity level in the banking system due to the attendant remittance of cash, which constitutes a major portion of banks’ liquid assets to the apex bank.

    “Furthermore, as part of risk management, banks with large government deposits mitigated their positions by investing the liability in T-bills and Federal Government of Nigeria bonds. These banks had to liquidate these investments in order to comply with the TSA regime, thereby further reducing their stock of liquid assets,” she said.

  • Expert urges govt to address hindrances in TSA

    Expert urges govt to address hindrances in TSA

    A financial expert, Dr. Samuel Nzekwe, has advised the Federal Government to intensify efforts in addressing the bottlenecks in the running of Treasury Single Account (TSA) in the country.
    Nzekwe, former President, Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Ota, Ogun State.
    He said such step would improve transactions through the TSA.
    The expert added that there were lots of bureaucracies affecting the smooth-running of TSA and this might affect success of the policy.
    “The bureaucracy on TSA should be reduced by the Federal Government so that transactions carried out through the account would be easy.
    “They should also look into areas the people are complaining about the TSA and effect the necessary changes,’’ he said.
    According to him, the introduction of TSA by Federal Government had left the financial sector with insufficient funds to give to investors since they depended heavily on public funds to do business.
    He, however, urged banks to change from their armchair banking and regulations, but to double their efforts in attracting more customers into the system to enable them have adequate funds to operate.

  • TUC seeks NHIS’ removal from TSA

    TUC seeks NHIS’ removal from TSA

    The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to direct Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) funds be removed from the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

    Speaking with reporters in Lagos, TUC President, Comrade Bobboi Bala Kaigama, said if the funds were not paid back into NHIS coffers, the scheme might collapse.

    “The withdrawal of humongous sums of money in the National Health Insurance Scheme fund and its subsequent lodgement into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) has gravely affected the operations and financial capability of the scheme in terms of growing the pooled fund.

    “This trend, if not reversed urgently, will adversely affect future activities and operations of the scheme,” he emphasised.

    The TUC chief said the NHIS was not a revenue generating agency since its funds come from the pool of workers, contributions,” he said.

    He added that the NHIS was established by the National Assembly Act CAP.42 LFN 2004 to provide health services to workers at affordable cost while treating tertiary related diseases, emergency health situations, and to eliminate huge out-of-pocket expenses.

    “For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to categorically state that NHIS by the Act that established it has never been a revenue generating agency for the government.

    “The contributions to the NHIS coffers are funds pooled majorly from monthly salaries of dedicated workers, money from international donors and voluntary contributions from private individuals,” Kaigama said.

    Kaigama emphasised that the NHIS was set up to cater for the healthcare of its contributing enrollees whose funds were the life of the scheme and by extension to provide universal healthcare coverage for all Nigerians.

    “If the Federal Government insists that its wrongly held position on the matter will not change, traden unions may be left with no other option than to seek redress in the law court in order to defend the overall interest of the workers who are the major contributors to the Scheme,” the Union emphasised.

  • NHIS funds: Why it’s unfair to blame TSA

    Since September 15, 2015 when the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy was implemented, it has been making headlines on the news pages, but hardly for the best of reasons. Nowadays, it seems every problem under the sun is blamed on the TSA, including delayed salaries, pay cuts and even something as ridiculous as lopsided end-of-year promotions.

    Some months ago, the sports ministry claimed it was unable to remunerate our sports team that participated in the Rio Olympic Games because its funds were domiciled in the TSA. The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) took the reins afterwards, alleging that lecturers were unable to access foreign grants and other perks due to the TSA which was undermining their autonomy. Oddly enough, fingers have been known to point at the TSA when some of our universities run out of letterhead paper. How more ridiculous can the blame game get?

    ASUU may have fought and won the battle for exclusion of its foreign grants from the TSA to perpetuate a cycle of misappropriation of funds in our tertiary institutions. But it is appalling that the Trade Union Congress (TUC) is joining the bandwagon to claim that the NHIS funds are “trapped” in the TSA as well, whipping up public sympathy on the platform of affordable healthcare.

    It is no news that the NHIS is mired in fraud. Last time we checked, the 11-year-old scheme was enmeshed in misappropriation of funds to the tune of N2.1 billion. In a recent interview granted to newsmen, NHIS Executive Secretary, Usman Yusuf, disclosed that federal workers who enrolled for the scheme were not being attended to, and the fraud rocking the system was much worse than the fuel subsidy scam. It is precisely for these and other reasons that the scheme needs to come under the umbrella of the TSA to instil a measure of fiscal discipline and accountability that it has not known in its 11 years of existence.

    Truth is, the anti-TSA campaign amounts to giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it. So far, the TSA has helped the government recover N4.3 trillion of its cash assets hitherto “trapped” in the system, no pun intended. The majority would have us return to the dark era when mismanagement of funds and impunity were the order of the day. But if there is to be a revolution, it must start now and we must support it. The TSA is not quicksand which traps funds. It is only a single account where the funds generated by our Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are lodged and disbursed subject to agreed processes meant to instil a measure of accountability in the administration of public funds.

    Coming back to the NHIS, it is misleading for the TUC to go to town with news that NHIS’s funds are “trapped” in the TSA and this is affecting healthcare delivery to workers who enrol for the scheme. Fact is, the TSA is only a year old while the NHIS is 11. Without question, the NHIS has barely scratched the surface of affordable healthcare delivery to Nigerian workers, much less the rest of us within that timeframe. So it is highly unfair to blame its glaring inadequacies on the TSA.

    To counter the much-vaunted “trapped funds” argument directly, NHIS’s funds in the TSA are accessible to select officers and management staff who can access and make transactions with it subject to the approval levels required by the organisation, as with other MDAs in the Federation. It is preposterous that the TUC is feigning ignorance of the fact that the same processes that guide opening and operating of accounts in commercial banks apply to the TSA as well. Before TSA when MDA funds were domiciled with multiple commercial banks, their financial transactions underwent various levels of approval and did not sail through until the final approver rubber-stamped the process. Asking for anything different with the TSA smacks of the antics of a few disgruntled elements out to take us back to the pre-TSA era when they could siphon public funds without any paper or electronic trail.

    The TUC needs to use the media to sell a positive message rather than claim that the permission of the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), CBN authorities and other external ‘regulators’ is needed before MDAs can make transactions out of their accounts. Truth is, even before the full implementation of the TSA as far back as 2012, the CBN and the AGF did not vet transactions processed by the MDAs. I am not sure they are about to start that now.

    On a more practical level, there are laid-down procedures for addressing grievances rather than playing the whipping boy in the public domain. If the NHIS requires a sub-account or wishes to invest its funds for more efficient service delivery to the citizenry, the Scheme’s managers should simply apply to the AGF for it and get back to the public if their request is unduly delayed or denied. Then, they might have a case. But at this point, the rest of us are much too busy trying to eke out a living to pay any attention to populist statements that take us nowhere fast.

    Iheanacho, a public affairs analyst, wrote in from Lagos

  • Between ASUU strike and TSA

    Between ASUU strike and TSA

    After the buzz generated by the just-concluded United States presidential elections, the Treasury Single Account (TSA) may very well be the most contentious issue discussed by policymakers and the public these days. It is rare to flip through the pages of newspapers without finding one or two references to the TSA, some positive but most negative.

    The TSA was also one of the issues the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) highlighted during its just suspended seven-day warning strike. Besides other burning demands such as increased funding, ASUU pressed for exemption from the TSA, with claims that the policy was infringing on its autonomy. I can understand the frustration of the lecturers. Time and again, they reach an agreement with the government over their entitlements, but the government always flouts those agreements and turns around to ask for their understanding. If the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement and 2013 MOU were pardonable mistakes, leaving the lecturers hanging in 2016 is simply inexcusable. Thankfully, both ASUU and the Senate announced the possibility of favourable compromise after their recent closed-door meetings, and we hope this will head off the possibility of an indefinite strike further up the line.

    But here is my problem with the lecturers. They cannot blame the TSA for delayed salaries, biased promotions, rundown university infrastructure and process inefficiency. The TSA is, after all, not an individual or entity. It is simply an account where all the taxes, levies and tariffs we pay to the government are lodged. Why is the TSA necessary, you may ask? Before now, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) operated as many as 17,000 accounts where revenue from taxes and other payments made by the public were deposited. But these accounts were left to yield interest for faceless individuals and groups. As such, government was unable to keep tabs on its income, and consequently starved of funds to execute developmental projects. Something had to give, and the government decided to collapse those multiple accounts into one managed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Of course, the process is two-way. There is a procedure for making payments and withdrawals into that account to ensure transparency. Those may be some of the process delays that ASUU has a problem with.

    So in practical terms, how does the TSA work? If you are a student, for instance, you would typically go to a designated bank to pay your school fees. After close of business, the commercial bank remits your payment, along with those of your friends, to the TSA and gets a commission for its services. The process works the same way across all government agencies, where they collect levies and pay into commercial banks for onward transfer to the TSA. So clearly, the TSA is not an organisation or a group of persons. In fact, the TSA is not managed by one distinct body. The account resides with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), while general management revolves around the apex bank, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) and the Ministry of Finance.

    In my own experience, change is constant. To ensure accountability, organisations sometimes put processes in place that might seem tough, but are ultimately for the common good. Recall that at some point, we could recover lost phone lines by simply walking up to the nearest call centre and making a request. But today, we must present any one of our voter’s registration card, driver’s licence or international passport to get this done. Trust me, this is not fun most of the time, especially when we don’t have ready access to those documents. But we are all willing to go through the process to avoid cases of identity theft and fraud.  I think it would do ASUU a lot of good to view the TSA in this light.

    We must understand that it would take us all some time to get used to the TSA. Meanwhile, what we should do is encourage the process and not blame it for everything under the sun that is wrong with our tertiary institutions. It is ridiculous, for instance, to blame the TSA when universities run out of letterhead paper for notification of results and other institutional documents. But that seems to be the general argument that ASUU is making. To be sure, universities have several autonomous TSA sub-accounts with the CBN meant for revolving funds such as this.  So the argument that they are financially handicapped doesn’t hold much water. Ordinarily, universities would have been exempt from the TSA. But in a mad rush to meet the September 15, 2015 deadline for compliance with the TSA, commercial banks mistakenly lumped their funds with the MDAs’ for onward lodgement with the CBN. But I’m sure that challenge is not beyond what a cordial parley with stakeholders can resolve rather than ineffective strike actions.

    The argument that the TSA is to blame for loss of grants from foreign institutions is also faulty. Following the TSA-stipulated closure of the universities’ domiciliary accounts, they have been experiencing systemic delays opening new accounts with the CBN. It is this challenge and not the TSA implementation that is delaying their access to grants and donations from foreign institutions. So FUNAAB’s Vice Chancellor, Prof. Olusola Oyewole’s recent disclosure that the university has had over $2 million grants for a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ‘trapped’ in the TSA does not exactly hit the nail on the head since the problem is mostly systemic. Good enough, Remita, the payment gateway to the TSA created by software giant SystemSpecs, can potentially plug this gap. However, all stakeholders must come to the drawing board and thrash out their grievances in an atmosphere devoid of rancour and threats.

    In the final analysis, our universities have always been grappling with funding issues and broken promises. I think ASUU should stick to the same line of argument and ensure it is resolved, else it will give us all the impression that its grouse with the TSA is because the policy leaves no room for mismanagement of funds.  If the TSA has anything to do with pay cuts in our universities like some argue, I’m sure it is because of the number of ghost workers discovered in the public sector since the policy was implemented. Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said as much recently when he announced that over 40,000 ghost workers had been flushed out of the public sector since the policy was enforced.  These are some of the positives of the TSA policy we should be thankful for rather than throw the baby away with the bathwater.

    Okoroafor wrote in from Kaduna