2yrs After TSA Adoption, Buhari’s Govt Hasn’t Audited N4.2trn ‘Transfers’ – Auditor-General
Two years after adoption of the Treasury Single Account (TSA), the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has not audited about N4.2 trillion remitted into the account.
This was according to Auditor – General of the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayine, who left members of the House of Representatives in shock when he made the revelation.
Ayine had declined to confirm the amount of funds remitted into the account after an ad hoc committee investigating the account claimed that about N4.2 trillion has so far been remitted into the TSA since 2015.
The Auditor-General told the ad hoc committee, headed by Mr. Abubakar Nuhu (APC-Kaduna), that it was an “omission” on the part of his office not to have audited the TSA since its commencement.
“For TSA, we have not actually carried out any performance audit directly. After my review (of the situation), I asked why there was no audit of the TSA and I was told it was an ongoing programme, but I knew that there is the need to carry it out,” Ayine told the committee.
“Not carrying it out was an omission and it was wrong because the circle of audit is for preceding year and we have had two years for TSA now.
“Since I noticed that no performance audit was done, I gave the directive that it should be carried out three weeks ago. ”
Asked to confirm the estimated N4.2tn remitted into the TSA, Ayine said he was, “Not quite (sure); I need to, as an auditor, to have verifiable evidence before me to be categorical in my response.
“I need to have documents relating (to the transfers),” he said.
Speaking further on the impact of the TSA so far, Ayine said the policy has helped in monitoring the flow of funds within Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government (MDAs).
Meanwhile, the Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, at a two-day workshop in Abuja, disclosed that the Federal Government now saves N4.7 billion monthly from money that would have been spent on bank charges if not for the TSA.
“The TSA has taken us out of the era of indiscriminate borrowings by the MDAs and saved government the charges associated with those borrowings, which hitherto amounted to N4.7bn monthly,” the Accountant-General had said.
Idris said, “The TSA has enabled us to make tremendous gains. We have successfully eliminated multiple banking arrangements resulting in consolidation of over 20,000 bank accounts, which were spread over the Deposit Money Banks across the country,” he said.
“This has further brought about transparency and effective tracking of government revenues. It has also led to the blocking of leakages and abuse, which characterised the public financial management before the implementation of the TSA,” he added.