Why We Won't Subscribe To TSA–NASS

The Treasury Single Account, TSA, has continued to generate controversies and the National Assembly, NASS, has explained why it would not be part of the policy, saying it would jeopardise its independence.

President Muhammadu Buhari, on assumption of office in May 2015, directed all government agency to key into the TSA as a way of reducing the level of corruption in governance.

Before now, income generating Federal Government parastatals operated different bank accounts, but the Buhari administration stopped that.

NASS, was also expected to subscribe to the programme, but the legislative arm of government has refused to be part of it.

During the President’s media chat last Wednesday, he complained about the refusal of NASS to be part of TSA.

“We are having problems with them (National Assembly) on TSA. We have to have a closed door session with them,” Buhari had said.

But the lawmakers have explained the reason behind this.

Spokesperson of the House of Representatives, Abdulrazak Sa’ad Namdas said in an interview that TSA is an executive policy, and that National Assembly as an arm of government was yet to be part of it.

“You know every arm of government has its ways of operations. The issue of TSA is an executive matter, and in as much as we want to work together with the executive for good governance, we are not part of TSA for now,” he said.

Also, his counterpart in the Senate, Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said, “There is no any trouble on TSA, it is as an executive programme and we cannot surrender our autonomy to the executive. Submitting ourselves to the TSA, is surrendering our autonomy to the executive.

“We are on the first line charge as guaranteed by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Why should we give you our funds to put in the TSA and then we will be subjected to your own control, is that autonomy? That is just the issue; we’ve given our total support to the TSA programme. As far as we are concerned, we cannot subject ourselves to it because it amount to mortgaging our autonomy.

“Our autonomy is guaranteed by the constitution and how our money should be paid is also guaranteed by the constitution. Are we saying our autonomy should be jettisoned? Are we a revenue generating arm? Are we saying that the constitution should be jettisoned, because somebody wants to do TSA? Are we going to put the Constitution aside and follow somebody’s wish? What we are following is constitutional,”