Guardian / Nigeria: Financial experts and socio-economic commentators have described as failure of the anti-corruption fight, the revelation that some agencies of government are boycotting the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
The development, which the Finance Minister, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, also described as diversion of public funds, has also, emerged in the form of frivolous spending by the agencies involved to the tune of 90 per cent of their generated revenues.
TSA is a single pool of government revenues, where all its agencies are mandated to remit earnings, in a move to entrench a culture of transparency, accountability and effecient management of national resources.
But, just one year after its take off, amid positive records, the public officer superintending the operations has raised the alarm, saying that it has been boycotted, with attendant losses running into billions.
Faculty member at the Lagos Business School, Dr. Austin Nweze, said the corruption fight has not been thorough, adding that many, especially those close to the national resource, will be looking for a way to help themselves, to avoid losing out entirely.
But a lawyer and public affairs analyst, Chukwuemeka Eze, noted that when the TSA was introduced, many people hailed it as an antidote to the financial indiscipline in the Ministries, Departments, and Agencies of Government, which to an extent it has proved true.
“Strict implementation of the TSA denotes that the MDAs will wait for approval from the Minister or such other authority in accordance with budget provisions before money will be spent.
“This has led to financial asphyxiation in the MDAs, prompting them to devise ingenious ways of overcoming the policy. It is evident that they collude with banks to open miscellaneous accounts, which they use for selected transactions.
“In many cases, they do it in collaboration with ministry officials who can defend these acts when the bubble bursts. From these accounts, the MDAs operate as of old. This is the trend that the Minister of Finance is miffed about,” he said.
“The TSA, going by the Minister’s confession, is endangered. Unless politicians check their avarice and looting of public funds, public servants will always device a means of eating from the cookie jar,” he added.
The minister revealed that agencies in question paid salaries above specifications of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, converting official cars to personal ownership under 48 hours of purchase, inappropriate and arbitrary monetization of medical allowances, undue and excessive overseas travels, lavish training allowances and conference spendings, excessive and personal loan approvals, including unapproved mortgages among others.
A civil society activist, Eze Onyekpere, told The Guardian that there seem to be a sort of confusion in the finance ministry, as sometimes they behave as if they do not know what to do.
“The ministry should come out clear in its statements. There should be further details if they are really fighting the corruption and know what to do. Of course, I am not surprised to an extent. Take the instance of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, which budget is cleared by the National Assembly committee, with N25 billion personnel cost. This is beside frivolous items and ridiculous sub-heads.
“In the first half of 2016, only about N951 billion was earned, but we spent N2.4 trillion. This means that the country is borrowing to pay salaries. This is the extent that things can be unclear,” he said.
The Chief Executive Officer of Cowry Asset Management Limited, Johnson Chukwu, admitted that there might be some conjecture by some individuals to take advantage of any situation.
