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| The senate in plenary session |
THE
Senate had on Thursday directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to terminate
its contract with Systemspecs, a financial firm which was contracted in respect
of the operation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the federal government.
Contrary
to the sum of N7.6 billion it was to collect which represents about 1% commission
of N800bn revenue remitted to the TSAs from October 2015 based on the existing contract
agreement, the Senate directed that the firm be paid the sum of N656.5m,
The
Senate also recommended that N700bn be paid as commission on any
transaction made by them instead of the fraudulent 1% commission charges on any
amount wired into the account by any of the e- payment platforms.
The
recommendations are contained in the report of the Senate Joint Committee on
Finance, Banking, Insurance and Public Accounts that probed the alleged N25bn
commission charges collected by REMITA, an e- collection platform of
Systemspecs through which government funds were remitted into TSA accounts.
According
to reports by the Leadership, among the 10 recommendations made by the joint Committee
which was presented by its chairman, John Enoh (PDP Cross River Central), the
Senate specifically ordered that the CBN should make sure the portion of
deductions retained by it and the affected deposit money banks is completely
refunded.
The
CBN, Senate further directed, must create an enabling environment for other e-
collection providers for competition, effectiveness, efficiency and greater
robustness, even as it directed that all agreed fees and payments for e-
collection service should be provided and disbursed from central pool rather
than being borne by MDAs.
Senate
President, Bukola Saraki emphatically noted that the action taken by the upper
legislative chamber on the TSA operation was not aimed at discouraging the use
of the account, but to ensure its effective management to save the nation from
any sharp practices and leakages.
“I
think that the message we are sending out today is very clear that our interest
lies in ensuring proper use of funds. This Senate will stand
firmly for that and this goes back to the issues where people wonder about the
usefulness or value of the parliament and I think this is a good example. By
this action, this country is saving between N22bn to over N30bn
which is higher than the appropriation of a lot of Ministries, Department and
Agencies of Government ( MDAs).
“When
motion for this investigation was raised in October last year, a lot of noise
was made that it was just because the Senate didn’t want to support TSA,
but this report categorically applauds the TSA but the issue is that the cost
of doing the transaction should not undermine the good purpose of the TSA and I
think that was what we have done today. We will have to ensure that the
respective agencies particularly CBN must refund this money complying
strictly with this observations and recommendations of the senate.
“It is
mind boggling to see the kind of money that would have just gone
away to bribing people if not because this motion came. I want to encourage our
colleagues to ensure that despite the kind of blackmail that we received
in doing our work, we should follow the examples that have been shown by these
three committees that when we have this sort of issues we must stand for what
we believe is right”, Saraki reportedly said.
It was
also recalled that the managing director of Systemspecs, owner of the REMITA e-
collection platform, Mr John Obaro, had explained before the joint committee in
December last year that the 1% charge was not meant for REMITA alone.
According to him, it was shared along with CBN itself and
other deposit money banks on the sharing pattern of 50% for REMITA, 40%
for other deposit banks and the remaining 10% for CBN.
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