BUSINESS ‘Nigeria’s foreign revenues not channelled through TSA’
Despite the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), Nigeria’s foreign revenues are not channeled to the federation account through the platform, a House of Representatives panel heard.
The panel also heard that only the local component of Nigeria’s earnings goes to the federation account through Remita, which is the platform used for the TSA account.
The panel, which is investigating the status of TSA chaired by Abubakar Nuhu Danburam (APC, Kano), was appalled at the revelation during a session with officials of SystemSpecs, the company that developed the Remita platform.
The lawmakers also heard that despite the TSA, some government agencies still post monies in bulk instead of on transaction basis.
Responding to questions from members of the panel, the Executive Director of SystemSpecs, Deremi Atanda, said as far as they are aware, Nigeria’s foreign revenues are not recorded on the Remita platform because they are not posted there.
Also, the managing director of the company, John Obaro, while answering a question, said Remita has all the processes needed for daily reconciliation of transactions.
At this point, Danburam sought to know if foreign transactions too could be monitored and the SystemSpecs Executive Director said “as at today, we are not aware that the Accountant General gave directive for the activation of the foreign component of the TSA.”
Members of the panel wondered why over two years after, foreign transactions are still not captured via TSA.
The committee chairman, Danburam, raised concern about the agencies that post their monies in bulk, saying it could be subject to anomalies and that reconciliation could be difficult.
Asked how much the company has received so far, as part of its commission for the transaction, the SystemSpecs officials promised to provide the documents on that.
They, however, said immediately after the controversy that heralded the implementation of the TSA in 2015, they returned all the amounts they had collected and did not receive anything for over one year.
“Unfortunately, as we speak, it has not been fully sorted out,” Atanda also said. FLIGHT
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