The controversy surrounding the service fee charged by the technology provider for the highly acclaimed single treasury account (TSA) appears to have eased after Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele ordered the return of all fees so far collected.
The technology provider SYSTEMSPECS was engaged by the apex bank several years ago, when the idea of TSA was first muted.
BusinessDay learnt that the CBN governor ordered the return of the fees so far charged until meetings are held to agree a new level of fees, given that when the provider was first engaged, the current volume of funds was not anticipated.
In a circular titled, “commencement of Federal government independent revenue collection under the treasury single account, TSA”, dated December 17, 2013, Dipo Fatokun, director of banking and payment systems department, levied a fee of one per cent for funds collected.
According to the circular, “a fee of 1% of funds collected is payable. This includes solution provider and participating bank fees.”
So far, over N600bn has been processed by the technology service provider, with about the same amount going directly from the commercial banks to the apex bank and the expectation that about N12bn would have been collected by the parties involved, led to many complaining against the fee.
A senior CBN official who spoke to BusinessDay, confirmed that the service provider is complying with the order to return the fees but he also acknowledges that the fee of 1% was agreed under the leadership of the former governor, but at that time, no one anticipated the large volume now involved.
He said, “I am fully aware that this level of 1% was agreed, but given the volume we are now dealing with, we believe this is too high. We now expect the service provider to come in for a re-negotiation.”
The TSA has two components and they are Payments (Outflow of funds from Government’s accounts at CBN) and Collections (Inflow of funds into Government’s account at CBN).
Extensive discussions on applicable transaction charges will now take place among the different stakeholders to agree a new level of fees to be payable.
Once agreed, the transaction charge will be shared among all industry players associated with any single collection transaction.
The TSA revenue collections scheme is a comprehensive approach to the management and reporting of all Federal Government receipts (revenues, donations, transfers, refunds, grants, fees, taxes, duties, tariffs, etc.) deposited into the TSA and Sub-Accounts maintained and operated at the CBN.
