President Muhammadu Buhari might spare some agencies, most notably highly profitable Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, from the necessity to implement the Treasury Single Account policy.
The decision to exempt NNPC from the TSA policy has come as the result of a meeting of the top NNPC officials and other agencies’ bosses with the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris.
After the meeting the Accountant-General of the Federation reported Muhammadu Buhari why some agencies including NNPC are not able to transfer to the TSA policy. According to Ahmed Idris, due to their operations’ specifics it is impossible to implement the TSA policy of collecting their revenues into a single account without substantial hampering of their operations.
Besides NNPC, the full list of the organisations to be exempt from TSA includes Bank of Industry, Urban Development Bank, Federal Mortgage Bank, Bank of Agriculture, Nigeria Export Import Bank, Nigeria Independent Power Project , Nigeria Railways and Galaxy Backbone.
Some other organisations, agencies and departments might be included to this list in the nearest future. Nevertheless, Ahmed Idris assured the press that the implementation of the TSA policy is on-going.
A month ago the presidency has issued a statement ordering every federal government ministry, parastatal and agencies to begin remitting its earnings into a Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Six days ago the Accountant- General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris has said that all ministries, departments and agencies that have failed to comply with the presidential September 15 deadline for the Treasury Single Account (TSA) will be sanctioned.
The directive from the federal government that every federal government ministry, parastatal and agencies should begin remitting its earnings into aTreasury Single Account (TSA) have had a spiral effect on the Nigerian banking industry.
Since the announcement, commercial banks in the country have reportedly started sacking some of their staff as they can no longer afford to keep them.
Nevertheless, Ahmed Idris, the accountant-general of the federation of Nigeria, tried to calm banking sector representatives, saying that introduction of the Treasury Single Account wouldn’t hurt their business in extent they expect.
