The Office of Accountant General of the Federation has insisted that there is no going bank on the September 15, 2015 deadline for federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies to comply with Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The clarification, at the weekend was obviously in reaction to BusinessDay earlier report that the inability of the AGF’s office to come up with operational guidelines for the policy could scuttle implementation and frustrate new deadline.
In a mailed statement, the OAGF noted that guidelines were already developed and would be made public soon.
It further reassured “all Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as well as the general public that the September 15, 2015 deadline for the closure of all accounts of Federal Government MDAs with the commercials banks is realistic, achievable and will not be shifted forward.”
“The Accountant-General of Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris emphasises that Implementation Guidelines have been developed and will soon be made available to all interested parties and the general public,” Kene Offie, deputy director, Press AGF office, stated.
She noted that the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, in line with its statutory mandate and Presidential directives on the TSA, would continue to provide all necessary information and technical support to all MDAs, banks and the general public to ensure a smooth, seamless and transparent implementation of the TSA/e-Collection policy.
Following President Buhari’s directive on the TSA policy, the AGF, Ahmed Idris, said three weeks ago that his office was working out a new set of guidelines to aid effective process, which BusinessDay discovered was not yet ready almost a week to the presidential deadline.
Also, as a follow up to that directive, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) mid last week warned banks to move all government accounts to its custody in line with the TSA rules or face severe sanctions.
Tokunbo Martins, CBN director of banking supervision, said in a circular – “BSD/DIR/GEN/LAB/08/048” directed all banks to ensure none of government monies are still in their vault at the expiration of the September 15 deadline issued by the President.
