WITH the oil prices sliding to an all, time low at the international market, which has resulted in dwindling foreign exchange for Nigeria, the need to plug leakages and ensure maximum utilization of government finances has become an imperative.

One of the major instruments adopted by the Muhammadu Buhari administration to ensure government retains its finances is the introduction of Treasury Single Account (TSA). The introduction of the accounting system has indeed brought with it some administrative challenges to the system.

One of the immediate challenges was the centralization of payment and receipt of government finances, which locked down the operations of some government agencies, departments and parastatals. The confusion within the system was caused by the non-categorization of government agencies such as the need to exempt those that were not revenue generation ones from the service rendering ones.

Mostly affected were tertiary education institutions, which are categorized as service rendering institutions.
The National President of Academic Staff of Polytechnics (ASUP), Chibuzo Asomugha raised alarm over the negative impacts of TSA saying, the tertiary education sector may collapse if the TSA is not revised.
He urged the Federal Government to critically examine the TSA with a view to examining those agencies of government especially tertiary institutions and allow them operate a moderated form of TSA.

He added: “We are saying this because the fluidity of operations of the institutions will be greatly hampered if they operate within the present format of TSA. The tertiary sub-sector is purely service oriented and its revenue is specifically tied to the daily running of the institutions and for the provisions of consumables needed for teaching and learning.

The TSA, though well intended, will tie down the processes of provision of daily needs of institutions and therefore hamper efficient service delivery. If strictly applied in its present format, the full operations of tertiary education institutions will be greatly hampered with regards to service delivery, personnel mobility and global aspirations.”

On his part, the General Secretary of the Non-Academic Staff of University and Associated Institutions (NASU), Peters Adeyemi posited that though the introduction of TSA has its merits, it must be implemented to avoid increasing the population of jobless Nigerians.

His explanation: “It is obvious that the TSA has put all the banks in trouble. And due to that trouble, banks are gradually disengaging quietly. This again is a clear deviation from the intention of the government to create massive jobs every year. The biggest crisis that confronts us today as a people is unemployment. If the APC manifesto said the party will generate two million jobs annually and six months into a four-year tenure, no single job has been created, rather job are lost, how can the government achieve that aim? Also side by side with this is also the problem of the downturn in the economy.

I think clearly that some of those things that this government has set out to achieve may be affected adversely by the current happenings in the economy. There is no doubt that government must begin to take practical steps towards delivering on those things they promised to do. When they start, that level of high hope Nigerians put in this government will be rekindled but now Nigerians are not too confident in the ability of this government to deliver.”

The NASU Scribe stressed the need to review the policy to tackle development challenge in governance as the administration settle down for business.

He added: “I also believe that TSA was introduced to check the recklessness of the past governments. For me, TSA is not a policy that can be permanent in the way it is without any modification will breed crisis even for governance. There are a lot of institutions that they now have to pay all the money they generated into government accounts. This has been a problem because those establishments no longer have the fund sot run their affairs. We must understand that it is not all government agencies that are given subventions. Some are supposed to generate money to complement subvention that comes from government especially in the education sector. Clearly, the TSA cannot be one-cap-fits-all. This is because institutions vary from one place to another. If government insists that every single penny generated be paid into the TSA, the education system will collapse.”

While urging President Buhari to declare how much has been saved in the TSA in the spirit of transparency, Adeyemi said government should embark on massive development of infrastructure to kick-start economic activities for massive generation of employment.

He said: “Is it not surprising that even with the TSA and piling up of so much money in the past six months, government is still claiming that Nigeria is broke? How can Nigeria be broke? Since the TSA began, nobody has rendered account of anybody on what the country has earned. With all the money paid into the TSA, why should Nigeria be broke at this point? Nigerians must know how much has the country generated in the last six months? How much did we spend? In the last six months, we have not had Ministers and their retinue of aides to pay and no single contractor has been paid.

Our President and his team have lived austere lifestyle. Clearly, we have made some massive savings and we are entitled as Nigerians to know. If from time to time, Nigerians are briefed not only on policies of government but about the impacts of the policies, Nigerian will value the essence of such policies. Nobody is talking about all of these but talking about that fact the country is broke gives some concerns to us in the labour movement.”

The Trade Union Congress (TUC) called for clarification over the role of a consulting firm, Remita, in the collection of the TSA.
In a statement signed by its President, Bobboi Kaigama and Secretary General, Musa Lawal, TUC said it supports the introduction of TSA, there is the need to review the percentage due to the firm in the collection process.

At this point in time, it is fundamentally important we remind the President Buhari led administration on the promise to restore the glory and public confidence of the people. The anti-corruption mantra of the present administration must be fought out no matter whose ox is gored. We support Single Treasury Account policy, but not when it has to do with the misplacement of N25bn, in the name of consultancy,” it stated.

It explained that consultancy is a neo-liberal policy of the Brettonwood institutions that has fanned the embers of all the anti-labour practices that exist, saying, “today, casualisation, outsourcing, downsizing and redundancy have become the order of the day in virtually all the organizations and we frown at it.”

The central labour centre also asked why did government engage a consultant in the first place and whether that means that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has no credible hands that can handle such jobs even with all the foreign trainings and its cost implications and why pay CBN workers so much if they cannot carry out such simple assignment as ensuring compliance of a policy?
It added: “For Remita, an e-collection agent to allegedly collect N25 billion for a day’s job smacks of corruption, which is what we are fighting against.

We are disturbed by this revelation and we insist that beyond probe the money must be repaid to the tresury. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Finance must suspend further implementation of the policy if TSA is all about robbing Peter to pay Paul. We call on government to fish out the strongmen behind the ripping off. Our position is that: change must not only be said to have been done, but it must be seen to have been done to all facets of our national life.