April 06, (THEWILL) – President Bola Tinubu’s apparent celebration last Sunday of the public good that followed his decision to grant the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike’s request to remove the FCT from Treasury Single Account, TSA, has once again raised concern about the value of that policy to speedy discharge of valuable service delivery to Nigerians.
According to the President, his administration’s decision to remove the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) from the TSA has led to the acceleration of development and enhancing its citizens’ participation in governance.
He noted that the bureaucracy associated with the TSA had hindered infrastructural growth in the FCT, necessitating a review for better impact and progress.
According to him, freeing the FCT from TSA restrictions has facilitated infrastructural development, improved healthcare services and strengthened security measures.
“I remember the day the FCT minister came to me and said, ‘Please take us out of the problem of the TSA so I can do more work and achieve more.’ I asked him to show me his plans and he did. From there, everything changed rapidly.
“I started seeing the opening up of rural areas, the resuscitation of abandoned projects and the completion of the Vice President’s official residence, which had been left unattended for years. The FCT also rehabilitated healthcare centres, upgraded school facilities and provided furniture,” Tinubu said.
The President commended Wike for demonstrating the need to free the FCT from bureaucratic bottlenecks and for restructuring the territory’s public service to ensure civil servants could aspire to higher positions.
We recall that the TSA, introduced and piloted in 2012, using a unified structure of accounting for 217 government Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, for accountability and transparency in public fund management, kicked off in 2016, with the aim to curb official corruption.
But over time, public criticisms have been mounting over the policy. Chief among the seasoned critics are the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, whose staff suffered untold salary adjustments, half payments and unexplained deductions because of the template used in calculating their emoluments.
While not opposed to the policy in principle, ASUU was able to prove that it negatively impacted the running of universities, making it difficult to conduct academic programmes.
Some other research suggests that the TSA may not have fully realized the expected gains in terms of increased tax revenue. But the single concern that cuts across all critics and admirers alike was “challenges include a lack of sincerity on the part of the government, legal barriers and issues with accountability and transparency.”
In due course, all of them were proved right. First Secretary to the Government of the Federation the TSA implementing President Muhammadu Buhari’ administration, Babachir Lawal, was implicated in an alleged “N544 million cutting grass contract,” for which he was prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, until November 18, 2022, when a High Court of the FCT, discharged and acquitted him.
In the same vein, Minister of Humanitarian and Disaster Management, Umar Farouq, was recently hauled by the EFCC for questioning over allegations of corruption in the handling of N37.1 billion social intervention funds during her tenure. His successor, Beta Edu, who was suspended by President Tinubu over unexplained expenditure of N585 million, is also a pointer to the zero impact of the TSA, whose main aim is to improve cash management, transparency and accountability in public finance.
So, over the years, the assumptions have persisted that it would change nothing unless corrupt officials were treated as criminals, prosecuted and jailed, while internal mechanisms to block leakages and wastage in public offices were installed.
Indeed, the biggest blow so far to public graft a la TSA is the pending investigation by the EFCC, of a former, suspended Accountant General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, for allegedly stealing N109 billion.
The case which has dragged on since May 2022, was adjourned by Justice Yusuf Haliu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, to May 7, 2025 for continuation of trial-within-trial.
We support the President’s waiver granted the FCT. It is clear proof that the policy has outlived its usefulness, if it was ever on. The President should therefore vacate the policy and allow other government agencies and ministries to deliver service delivery under strict adherence to due process.
