The House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the status of Treasury Single Account, TSA, and the level of compliance by commercial banks and government agencies have accused Stanbic IBTC of keeping $4.9m outside the TSA.
While defending the bank’s action, Managing Director, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mr. Demola Sogunle, revealed that the bank had a presidential approval to keep the HYPREP (Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project) Account of the Federal Ministry of Environment. He, however, promised to produce evidence to the committee at the next sitting.
In his words:
“I will make available all information to this committee. There is no intention to hide anything.”
The committee chaired by Hon. Abubakar Danburam-Nuhu, therefore, ordered the bank to produce evidence of the presidential approval that allowed it to keep the money as against the TSA policy.
Recall that last year 7 commercial banks were accused of not remitting $793 million into the TSA, an allegation the banks denied. This later forced the Federal Government to withdraw the suit against the banks.
The Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, recently revealed that total revenue of ₦8.9 trillion from Ministries, Departments and Agencies MDAs of government has been recorded by the Federal Government since the commencement of the Treasury Single Accounts TSA in 2016
Treasury Single Account is a public accounting system of government where all government revenues are paid into the Consolidated Revenue Account (CRA) at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
However, some accounts operated by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and West African School Certificate (WAEC) were exempted from the TSA because of the nature of their operations.
