Since the implementation of the Treasury Single Account in 2012,
over N30tn worth of transactions have been recorded through it, the
Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris, has
said.
Idris said this on Monday in Abuja when he received a delegation
from The Gambia which is in the country to understudy Nigeria’s TSA
system.
The TSA initiative, which is one of the public financial
management reforms, had led to the closure of over 20,000 bank
accounts while over 1,674 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of
government had been enrolled into the TSA platform.
Idris, who was represented at the event by the Director of
Funds, Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr
Mohammed Usman, said the TSA initiative had been commended by the
international community.
He said while the delegation from The Gambia was currently
understudying the initiative, another delegation from Ethiopia was
being expected in Nigeria in the next four weeks.
He said, “If you start from 2012 when we started the full TSA,
and you are looking at the volume of transactions, I think you will
be looking at something in the region of N30tn.
“But as I said, that is in terms of transaction volume, not in
terms of balances or anything; so we are looking at turnover and it
should be over N30tn.
“We are aware that the international community appreciates the
strides we have made in implementing the TSA in Nigeria.”
In a related development, the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed,
said the Federal Government was considering another option of
capturing all accruals by foreign missions into a single
account.
Speaking during a meeting with the delegation from The Gambia,
Ahmed stated that one of the challenges facing the full
implementation of the TSA in Nigeria was how to bring in revenues
generated by foreign missions.
The revenues from foreign missions which are usually in
different currencies might pose reconciliation challenges owing to
the various exchange rates that may be applicable for the
conversion of the transactions involved.
To address this challenge, the finance minister said the
government was looking at a different option to interface with the
TSA for foreign missions.
She told the delegation that with the introduction of the TSA,
balances in the account were regularly reconciled.
She also urged the delegation to take advantage of their two
weeks of study in Nigeria to visit some states in the country that
had implemented a different variant of the TSA from the Federal
Government.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and National
Planning of The Gambia, Ada Gaye, said the delegation was in the
country to learn from Nigeria how it had managed its TSA.
He said this would enable her country to effectively implement
the public finance reforms taking place in The Gambia, especially
in the area of monitoring of funds.