TSA forced NNPC to close over 2000 bank accounts-official

The introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in August 2015 reduced the number of accounts managed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from over 2000 to a little under 200, the corporation’s chief financial officer (CFO) said.

Mr. Isiaka Abdulrazaq the NNPC CFO spoke in an interview published in the corporation’s quarterly magazine.

The TSA, a centralised Federal Government revenue account kept by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) was proposed and only partially implemented in 2012 but the Buhari Administration started its full implementation in 2015.

“It is on record that NNPC is one of the few parastatals of government that achieved seamless movement of funds from deposit money banks to the various TSA accounts opened by the CBN,” Mr. Abdulrazaq said.

“The process reduced the unwieldy number of accounts managed by the Corporation from over 2000 to a little under 200,” he said adding that all the old accounts with the commercial banks have been fully reconciled and closed.

NNPC has in recent times been accused of colluding with some banks to prevent the remittance of some funds into the TSA.

NNPC has refuted such allegations explaining that it had earlier taken steps to inform the Presidency, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, (AGF) and the CBN on the existence of such accounts.

The AGF Alhaji Ahmed Idris said recently in Abuja that since the introduction of the TSA in 2015 over 17,000 bank accounts have been closed while huge sums of money had been moved from Deposit Money Banks to the CBN.