Expdonaloaded News; Senate probes alleged abuse of TSA

SENATE yesterday com­menced investigation into al­leged abuse in the operation of the Treasury Single Ac­count (TSA).The Senate mandated Committees on Finance, Banking, Insurance and other financial institutions as well as Public Accounts to find out the truth, or otherwise, in the allegation that a private con­sultant was paid N25 billion for services in the manage­ment of the TSA and submit a report within two weeks.

Adopting a motion spon­sored by Senator Dino Me­laye and 36 others, the upper legislative chamber urged the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Ni­geria (CBN) to stop further payments to the consultant, pending the outcome of its investigation.
Melaye in his motion tagged: Abuse and Misman­agement of the Treasury Sin­gle Account Regime, drew the attention of the Senate to the fact that “in the course of the Treasury Single Ac­count, the Federal Govern­ment mopped up N2.5 tril­lion through its E-collection agent called REMITA which charges one per cent of all monies passing through it… the implication of which is that one percent of the N2.5 trillion mopped up on Sep­tember 15, alone, amounted to N25 billion which accrued to REMITA for doing noth­ing.”
He also informed the Sen­ate that “the appointment of REMITA as an agent for the operation of the TSA negates and contravenes Section 162(1) of the 1999 Constitu­tion which provides that “the Federation shall maintain a special account to be called Federation Account into which all revenues collected by government of the Federa­tion except the proceeds from the personal income tax of the personnel of the Armed Forces of the Federation, the Nigeria Police Force, the ministry or department of government charged with foreign affairs and the resi­dents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT),Abuja.
Senate Majority Leader, Mohammed Ali Ndume, who seconded the motion, told his colleagues that he had sought to know from the CBN Gov­ernor, Godwin Emefiele, the authority that approved the appointment of the consul­tancy firm, and CBN gover­nor said he was not aware.