IMPERATIVE OF TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT (TSA) IN NIGERIA

Abstract

History guides and shapes thinking in a particular phenomenon, evaluation of government accounting and finance thoughts have help in no small manner. There exist reasons to have polices, process, procedures and tools that unifies all government bank accounts in a single unit for the effective management of government finances, bank and cash position. This paper therefore sought to review the history, workings and benefit of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Nigeria using metal-analysis methods. It was found out that despite the numerous benefits of the adoption of TSA, its challenged are abound. This study concluded that the place of Treasury Single Account in Nigeria cannot be underestimated in ensuring that this Nation is free from corruption of public officers and their private collaborator and also ensured that government is able to know and account for it money from all sources at a glance. Government at all levels in Nigeria are encouraged to take the seriously the benefit of operation of TSA and also learn from its resultant effect on the economy on the Nation. TSA is hereby further recommended for the prevention of fraudulent activities and enable government to monitor it resources at a glance. However, care must be taken in order not to allow the negative effect of TSA to overwhelm the intention of government.

1.1. INTRODUCTION

The number of polices, laws or regulations shows the extent and number of time those charge with governance of organizations, state or countries have notice infraction with respect to the ways and manners people carry on their statutory duties. Treasury Single Account (TSA) is a process and tool for effective management of government’s finances, banking and cash position. TSA pools and unifies all government accounts and finance in a common pulse or fund.

It is believed that better cash management practices would be achieved with the advent of TSA since the Treasury can at all times have an overall view of government’s cash position, as against the fragmented positions of different Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs), which need to be laboriously pooled together to get the overall picture. This will reduce the cost of borrowing by government and its agencies, as the government will likely be in the surplus at most times of the year.

In the opinion of Onyekpere (2015), advantages and benefits of the TSA are legion. The consolidation into a TSA paves way for the timely capture and payment of all due revenues into government coffers without the intermediation of multiple banking arrangements. This prevents revenue leakages in terms of revenue loss and mismanagement by operators of all revenue-generating agencies.

Of good note is the practice before the TSA, a particular MDA will based on budgetary releases could have surplus cash (meaning cash that is not immediately required) in its bank accounts whilst, another MDA which needs immediate cash for urgent transactions is cash starved and has little or nothing in its account. Although, MDA ‘B’ has approvals in the budget for transaction, it has no immediate cash. MDA ‘B’ is likely to borrow from a bank at an interest to carry out the urgent assignment, thereby incurring costs to Treasury, whilst treasury finances lie idle in MDA ‘A’. This would no longer happen (Onyekpere, 2015).

Alenoghena (2015) suggested that TSA was adopted for transparency. A situation where a particular agency of government could not account for number of bank account it have let alone able to most of government organs that generate income and are supposed to be accountable and know the sources of inflows into the different organisations. When it is difficult to establish these sources, there is room for people to tamper with funds. It is in the constitution that they are supposed to only open accounts to receive funds for the Federal Government, which is supposed to be domiciled in with the CBN. They had the authority under previous administrations to open accounts at will, provided the minister in charge of that ministry approves (Alenoghena, 2015).