Going forward, Nigerians who use Remita to make payments into the Treasury Single Account (TSA) of the Federal Government would have to bear the costs associated with using the platform.
This is because the Federal Government of Nigeria has directed an immediate implementation of the global e-payment pricing system whereby the people making payments bear the costs for the service rendered.
To this effect, Remita issued a statement, yesterday, informing its customers about the immediate implementation of the directive starting November 1st, 2018.
According to the statement which was sent to Nairametrics, users of Remita will now have to take care of the service fees which will be associated with every single transaction they make on the platform; henceforth.
“This implies that the payer will, henceforth, bear the cost of using the platform and associated charges for the transaction rather than the Government bearing the cost of the transaction as was the case before now.
“You will, therefore, notice that service fees will henceforth be added to all your transactions.” – Remita
Will this hurt Remita’s business?
No, it will not. This is because Remita is the Government’s only approved “gateway to the Treasury Single Account”. In other words, Nigerians will have no choice than to use the e-payment platform everytime they make payments to the Government.
Nigerians have no choice than to comply…
Recall that in 2015 under the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, the Federal Government fully implemented the Treasury Single Account which was initially proposed and partially implemented in 2012.
The TSA is a financial policy which was initiated as part of efforts to checkmate corruption/leakages in the system. It works in such a way that all the revenues generated by Government ministries, department and agencies flow into a single FG account which is supervised by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Now, bearing in mind that Nigerians will inevitably pay bills to the Government (including taxes, tuition fees, etc), they will unavoidably have to oblige this new directive.
But why order the implementation now?
It is rather interesting that the Federal Government is choosing now to order the full implementation of the so-called global pricing system for e-payments. Recall that Nigeria is in its election season, even as all is now set for the highly contested presidential election come February 2019.
Nigerians are monitoring the developments leading to the general elections, which is why this directive may be coming at the wrong time.
About Remita
Remita is a Lagos-based digital payment platform which facilitates business transactions in Nigeria.
