President sets September 15 deadline for obedience to new payment order
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday gave September 15 as deadline to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of the Federal Government to comply fully with the new Treasury Single Account (TSA).
The new deadline came barely one month after he first ordered all government agencies to pay in all revenues generated by them into the TSA domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
A statement by the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the president, Mr. Femi Adesina, said all MDAs that failed to comply with the new directive would face serious sanction.
The statement said a circular had already been issued by the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr. Danladi Kifasi, to all MDAs to ensure strict compliance with the deadline to avoid sanctions. The circular, dated September 4, 2015, added that some MDAs were yet to comply with an earlier circular issued on August 7, 2015 which conveyed Buhari’s original directive on the payment of all Federal Government’s revenue into the TSA.
“In this regard, His Excellency, Mr. President, has directed that all MDAs are to comply with the instructions on the Treasury Single Account (TSA) unfailingly by Tuesday, September 15, 2015. “Heads of MDAs and other arms of government are enjoined to give this circular the widest circulation and ensure strict compliance to avoid sanctions,” the statement quoted Kifasi as saying.
A senior official in the office of the Accountant- General of the Federation (AGF) who craved for anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the matter told New Telegraph that most government organisations had started complying with the directive on the TSA. According to him, all the MDAs do not have a choice but to comply with the presidential directive.
“It (compliance) will not come overnight; the MDAs have been operating various accounts so they would need to harmonise them. You know that it takes some processes to close an existing account, especially when it is a corporate one,” he said. He added that since it was the sole responsibility of the Accountant-General of the Federation to monitor compliance, the new AGF has started working with MDAs even before the deadline came from the Head of Service.
The TSA policy was designed to block all leakages in the revenue chain of the government, but the policy also gave some allowances for partially self-funding agencies to maintain sub accounts linked to TSA while their accounting systems will be configured to allow them access to funds based on their approved budgetary provisions.
The directive, New Telegraph learnt, was targeted mainly at high revenue generating agencies such as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Nigeria Maritime Security and Safety Agency (NIMASA), amongst others. New Telegraph learnt that the latest directive on the September 15 deadline became necessary after the presidency discovered that the level of compliance was below expectation.
Many MDAs were yet to comply with the directive as some of the agencies claimed ignorance of the earlier circular from the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation. Some others were waiting for a clear-cut directive before taking action.
According to reports, those already complaint included the Ministries of Finance, Communications Technology, Niger Delta, Land and Housing and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), NigComSat, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) and Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
Other agencies that had complied were the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA), Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigeria Customs Service.
However, it was discovered that the TSA was not entirely a new policy as the last administration had given a similar directive which many MDAs had been compliant since 2012 while others became compliant in February 2015 following the directive of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
