Abuja – A Coalition of Media and Civil Society Organisations has described the Treasury Single Account (TSA) as a home-grown technology that can help the Federal Government sustain the fight against corruption.
The Executive Director of the group, Mr Omoluabi Adeyemi made the remark at a news conference on Friday and urged government to sustain the implementation of TSA.
Adeyemi said that the success of REMITA in implementing the TSA remained the most significant achievement of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration in the last one year.
According to Adeyemi, TSA has helped the Federal Government to mop up over N3 trillion, facilitate better fiscal and monetary coordination among different government agencies.
“The treasury single account policy has emerged the most popular, most effective and the most celebrated idea the current administration has ever made in the last one year.
“This has been made to be with the help of the globally celebrated REMITA platform and the platform has generated trillions of naira into our federation account.
“It has helped government gather revenue, wiped out corruption associated with income generation and collection and created viable alternative to revenue from sales of crude oil that is crashing by the day,’’ Adeyemi said.
He noted that before the full implementation of the TSA, various Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government operated over 17,000 government accounts.
This, he said, made it difficult for government to monitor its income and encouraged waste and highest level of corruption.
He said that the platform had created a credible and dependable alternative to fund the nation’s budget, build infrastructure and carry out the fantastic programmes of government.
Adeyemi, however, expressed displeasure on the inability of government to fulfill its contractual agreements by suspending the payment of agreed fee to REMITA, the platform provider.
“It is most regrettable and highly disturbing that the stakeholders that provides this platform and rendering services that sustains the uninterrupted operation of this platform are yet to be paid their agreed fees.
“This is an issue we demand government should look into.
“Mr President must as a matter of immediate action make a presidential declaration or directive that these patriotic Nigerian organisations be paid their legal entitlement,’’ he said.
He urged the government to begin to look inward for homegrown technology and innovations that could promote rapid national development.
“It is high time we support and encourage homegrown innovation that will at the same time create job and improve our economy,’’ he said. (NAN)