•Wabara
A former Senate President and Chairman, Board of Trustees, BoT, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr Adolphus Wabara, has faulted President Bola Tinubu’s recent directive for the abolition of Treasury Single Account, TSA, and introduction of Sub-Recurrent Account, SRA.
It will be recalled that the Ministry of Finance had on December 28, 2023, directed that all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, fully funded by the Federal Government should remit 100 per cent of their revenues into a Sub-Recurrent Account, a sub-component of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, CRF, where the federal government will now receive and consolidate its revenue earnings.
According to the new policy, agencies not funded by the federal government are expected to remit 50 per cent of their generated revenues, reports Vanguard.
The directive seems to have effectively killed the TSA introduced by former President Goodluck Jonathan but operated under the immediate past administration of ex-President Muhammadu Buhari.
The new policy, according to the federal government, is aimed at preventing waste and improving revenue generation, fiscal discipline, accountability and transparency.
It said: “All Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAS) that are fully funded through the annual federal government budget (receiving personnel, overhead and capital allocation) and on the schedule of Fiscal Responsibility Act, 2007 and any addition by the Federal Ministry of Finance should remit one hundred per cent of their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to the Sub-Recurrent Account, which is a Sub-component of the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).”
But reacting, Wabara disagreed with the federal government that the new policy was aimed at preventing corruption, insisting rather, it would be “a panacea for corruption.”
The former Senate President argued that the new policy would rather encourage financial malpractices and further siphoning of public funds into private pockets.
The former Senate President, who spoke with our correspondent, said: “I obtained my Ph.D defending my dissertation on Treasury Single Account. I am extremely disappointed with this decision of Tinubu.
“This Tinubu’s partial TSA policy is a panacea for corruption. It gives the unfortunate impression that the Tinubu administration is not cut out to fight corruption but unwittingly creating channels to siphon money. There are no two ways about it.
“As a scholar on this subject, I challenge the Tinubu administration to give Nigerians one good reason for this policy change other than to encourage corruption.”
Wabara, who called for a return to the TSA, advocated financial transparency and prudent management of scarce resources “if Nigeria wants early exit from its current economic malady.”
