The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL has once again commended the effort of the Federal Government for having come up with a policy such as Treasury Single Account, TSA that has successfully helped save the Federal purse from unnecessary debts.
This commendation was made by the Executive Chairman of CACOL, Mr. Debo Adeniran in reaction to media reports that after the 2015 activation of the TSA policy, over 20,000 accounts with Deposit Money Banks belonging to Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) had been closed. The closures according the reports have enabled the movement of about N5.24tn into the TSA recovered from several fake accounts.
“We are impressed with this achievement and admit that this policy is indeed a powerful tool in the fight against corruption. It has exposed a lot of looters of the National treasury and it has made it easy to trace some accounts operating under fake names.”
“We are proud to have been one of the very active supporters and promoters of the idea of the TSA with the results we are witnessing. We had insisted back then when some out of their corrupt selfish interests wanted to kill the TSA that the move will have injurious effect on the anti-corruption drive.”
“We were convinced that tampering with Treasury Single Account (TSA) initiative will be tantamount to unplugging the holes of corruption that had already been plugged by the very effective strategy which had helped the country to check fraud and promote accountability. We stand vindicated given the holes the TSA have been able to plug thus far and the funds saved.”
Continuing, Adeniran said “prior to this time, there had been several bank accounts where corrupt elements in power and appointed offices indiscriminately kept state funds meant for public usage to yield interests for them leading to deprivations in the country.”
“We once again call on the Senate to shelve its ploy to frustrate the operations of TSA; the policy should be embraced by all right-thinking Nigerians who want corruption to be booted out of the country. The Senate should enact enabling laws for the hitch-free operation the TSA and the bills on whistle-blowing, money laundering, witness protection etc. should be passed expeditiously in order to strengthen the anti-corruption drive.”
“The truth is that the without the TSA, the N5.24trillion moved to the account would likely have ended up in private pockets without traces. We call on all the state governments to create their own TSAs in order block leakages in the financing and accounting systems.” He concluded