The Treasury Single Account (TSA) contract that gave out 1% as remittance fee for all government accounts moved to the Central Bank of Nigeria was signed under the regime of Goodluck Jonathan in 2012, according to a report by SaharaReporters.
This revelation follows the Senate resolution followed a motion by Dino Melaye (APC-Kogi West) who maintained that choosing a company, Remita, as the Federal Government’s electronic collection agent, violated Nigerian laws, including section 162 (1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Act, and Bank and other Financial Institutions Act, BOFIA, 2007.
President Muhammadu Buhari had, on September 15, directed all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, to close their various accounts with commercial banks and pay all revenues into the Federal Government’s account with CBN under the TSA policy.
Mr. Melaye questioned the legality of operating the TSA through a revenue collection agent, Remita, which he said had made at least N25 billion in the course of the operation “for doing nothing”. He said the Federal Government mopped up N2.5 trillion on September 15 alone through Remita which charges one per cent of all monies passing through it, amounting to N25 billion.
The TSA policy was formulated under former President Jonathan but due to weak regulations and corruption in the system, several ministries, departments and agencies of the Nigerian government flatly refused to conform with the TSA policy.
A company, Systemspecs Ltd, founded by John Tanimola Osaro in 1992, got the contract to oversee the remittance of funds into the TSA. “Remita” is the flagship product of Mr. Obaro’s Systemspecs Ltd. According to our CBN source, the company built in a demand for a 1% fee to be paid to it for all remittances made into the TSA. System specs Ltd is chaired by a former Nigerian Ambassador to the UK and chair of SURE-P program under ex-President Jonathan’s regime.
Since the commencement of full implementation of TSA under Buhari, Systemspecs had already been paid N8.6 billion when CBN officials claimed they detected the anomaly and forced Mr. Obaro’s company to refund the excessive remittance fee. So far, the TSA account has N1.5 trillion deposited in it, the CBN source said no commission was paid going by the SaharaReporters account.
The Central Bank source said the apex bank was in the process of developing internal competency to enable it to handle the TSA. “We at the Central Bank should be able to handle remittances into the TSA without having to pay any so-called consultants a bloated remittance fee,” the source said.
SaharaReporters also contacted the former Central Bank Governor, Lamido Sanusi, who is now the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II. He asserted that the CBN did not sign any contract with REMITA under his watch. In a series of text messages, he stated that it was the Ministry of Finance and the Accountant General of the Federation who must have signed the contract with REMITA. The former CBN Governor added that only Nigeria’s Finance Minister is entitled to pay commission on such payments. He said under his tenure as CBN Governor his team kept pushing for TSA. According to him, the CBN’s call for the institution of TSA could be found in the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting communiques. He told SaharaReporters that some ministers in ex-President Jonathan’s government resisted the TSA apparently because they were doing deals with banks.
SaharaReporters said it contacted Mr. Obaro’s company, but it did not get respond to it’s inquiries. Meanwhile, the Senate asked its committees on Finance, Banking and other Financial Institutions and Public Accounts to “carry out holistic investigation on the matter and report back in four weeks”.
