Expert advises FG ON TSA management

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) on Monday in Ota, Ogun.

He said that such step would improve transactions through the TSA.

The expert said 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 of 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 dependeded 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 to have adequate funds to operate.

Also, Stephen Ocheni, another accountant highlighted the importance of t TSA that it was set to linked bank accounts through which the government transacts all its receipts and payments and obtains a consolidated view of its cash position at the end of each day.

Ocheni maintained that prior to the implementation of the TSA, government was incurring finance cost on debit balances in some MDA’s accounts, while it was earning close to nothing on the credit balances of other MDAs.

“While it is necessary to distinguish individual cash transactions for control and reporting purposes, these objectives are achieved through the accounting system and not by holding and/or depositing cash in transaction-specific individual bank accounts.

“This enables the ministry of finance/treasury to delink management of cash from control at a transaction level,” he said.

With the TSA, the net balances on all the MDA accounts will now reside with the Central Bank, hence the government will avoid incurring interest costs while in positive net position and eradicates loss and leakages of legitimate revenue meant for the Consolidated and Federation Accounts.

Another academic, Mr. Awogbemi, noted that TSA is specifically scripted to promote transparency and facilitate compliance with sections 80 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution.

“This system of account would end the previous public accounting system characterised by the existence of several fragmented accounts for government revenues, incomes and receipts, which in the recent past has meant the loss or leakages of legitimate income meant for the Federation Account,” he said.