Lagos Lawmaker Carpets Buhari Over Single Treasury Account

Contrary to widespread opinion, a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Victor Akande has faulted the Treasury Single Account (TSA) introduced by the Federal Government to streamline all accounts of all the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

President, Muhammadu Buhari had recently revealed the plan of the Federal Government to direct Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs of the Federal Government to run a Treasury Single Account, TSA, which will be domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN.

Also to be affected by the directive are Foreign Missions,Teaching Hospitals, Medical Centres, Federal Tertiary Institutions. Agencies like the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Security and Exchange Commission SEC, Corporate Affairs Commission CAC, Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, FAAN.

Others are NCAA, NIMASA, NDIC, NSC, NNPC, FIRS, NCS, MMSD, DPR.

President Buhari’s directive is drawn from section 80 of the 1999 Constitution. The section 80  (1) reads:
“All revenues or other moneys raised or received by the Federation (not being revenues or other moneys payable under this Constitution or any Act of the National Assembly into any other public fund of the Federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one Consolidated Revenue Fund of the Federation.”

However, Akande who is a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) representing Ojo constituency I said during an interview with newsmen that such a move would draw the country back, adding that it would lead to bureaucratic delay in decision making.

He said: “When you say you want a better change, can we now go to the old era, where everything was crammed together. It is very wrong because you are sending us back to 30 years ago, where bureaucracy did not make things to work.

“A system where MDAs did not have a holistic account of what they have done over the years is not good enough. The President’s directive on this is in bad faith because to get some things done, you would have to go through bureaucratic processes and with this, there would not be any development,” he said.

The lawmaker explained that “where you want the CBN to manage the accounts of the MDAs is too bad, have they managed their own accounts successfully without fraud. Let them come and defend their own budget, they have not done that and you want to put this one on their heads again. Yet, we said we want everything to be clear. It is like joining 3, 4 or 5 ministries together, would there not be problems?” He queried.

Akande argued that the leakages that had been noticed in the management of MDAs’ accounts should not be linked into leadership problem, saying otherwise it was a inability of adequate control.

He said, “The problem is not about leadership per se, we can say it is leadership and we can say it is not leadership. All that we need to do is control, we don’t have control. We should put the control in place.”