TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT

CHAPTER ONE

1.1     INTRODUCTION

Treasury single account is a public accounting system under which all government revenue, receipts and income are collected into single account, usually maintained by the country’s Central Bank and all payments done through this account as well.

Also treasury single account come into existence in Nigeria on 15^th of September 2015 by the new elected government president Muhammed Buhari in other to utilize public fund and maximize corruption in the country. Although Treasury Single Account has been in existence in some countries before now, such as United Kingdom, France and some part of the United State of American (U.S.A.). The purpose is primarily to ensure accountability of government revenue, enhance transparency and avoid misapplication of public funds. The maintenance of Treasury Single Account will help to ensure proper cash management by eliminating the funds usually left with different deposit money banks and in a way of enhancing reconciliation of revenue collection and payment.

Section 80(1) of the 1999 constitution as amended states “ All revenue or other money raised or received by the federation (not being revenue or other money raised or payable under this constitution or any act of the National assembly into any other public fund of the federation established for a specific purpose) shall be paid into and form one consolidated revenue fund of the federation”. Successive governments have continued to operate multiple accounts for the collection and spending of government revenue in flagrant disregard to the provision of the constitution which required that all government revenues should be remitted into a single account. It was not until 2012 that government ran a pilot scheme for a single account using 217 ministries, department and agencies as a test case.

The pilot scheme saved Nigeria about N500 billion in frivolous spending. The success of the pilot scheme motivated the government to fully implement Treasury Single Account (TSA), leading to the directives to banks to implement the technology platform that will help accommodate the Treasury Single Account (TSA) scheme. The recent directive by President Muhammed Buhari that all government revenues should be remitted to a treasury single account is in consonance with this programme and in compliance with the provisions of the 1999 constitution Central Bank of Nigerian, 2015 (CBN 2015).

The central bank has opened a Consolidated Revenue Account to receive all government revenue and effect payments through this account. This is the treasury single account. All Ministries, Departments and Agencies are expected to remit their revenue collections to this account through the individual Deposit Money Banks who act has collection agents. This means that the money deposit  banks will continue to maintain revenue collection accounts for Ministries, Department and Agencies but all money collected by these banks will have be remitted into the Consolidated Revenue Accounts with the (CBN) Central Banks of Nigeria at the end of each banking day.

Different types of accounts could be maintained under a Treasury Single Account main accounts, subsidiary or sub-accounts and Zero balance account. Other types of accounts that could be operated include imprest  accounts, transit  account and correspondence accounts. These accounts are maintained for transaction purposes for funds flowing in and out of the Treasury Single Account.

Before the adoption of Treasury Single Account by the Buhari Administration, Nigeria public accounting system was in fragmented accounts operated by government agencies for government revenues, inccomes and receipts, which in the recent past facilities leakages of legitimate income meant for the federation account. Treasury Single Account is an initiative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) / World Bank in June 2010. It is a key component of the economy reform programme. Treasury Single Account is an essential tool for emerging market and low income countries like Nigeria with fragmented systems for handling government receipts and payments.

The federal government Treasury Single Account (TSA) protect, which seeks to establish a unified structure of government bank accounts, could be the single most effective mechanism for dealing with corruption in cash management in Ministries and Agencies, business day has learnt.

The initiative is being championed by the federal Ministry of Finance with the office of the Accountant General of the federation serving as the implementing agency in active collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN). The project is inspired by global best practices long established by countries across the world and has a proven record of enhancing oversight and control of government cash resources.

According to a review document seen by business day, the new initiative should help to reverse the situation where idle cash balances in bank account for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s) often fail to earn market related renumeration.

1.2     STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

1. The implementation of the TSA has not being fully implemented by all the states in the country; this might be attributed to the state inability to understand the benefit of the scheme, by understanding the benefit of TSA which is one of the focal point this study is centered on; it is believed will allow states to implement the scheme.
2. The conventional accounting system deployed by MDA’s is susceptible to leakages, having a consolidation account which is what TSA is all about will allow all these leakages to be blocked.
3. The economy of the country (Nigeria) is in a very challenging and dire state. This might be attributed to exponencial drop in crude oil and the level corruption entrenched in MDA’s this corruption is encouraged by the conventional accounting system which makes it nearly impossible for government to trace their revenue. Implementation of the TSA will enable the government to fight corruption to a logical state and consequently improve the economy.

1.3     RESEARCH QUESTION

1. What are the challenges of Treasury Single Account on the banking sector in Nigeria?
2. What are the benefits of Treasury Single Account?
3. Is joint account help in recovering stolen money?
4. Do employees given the responsibilities of maintaining Treasury Single Account happy or not?
5. How often do auditors manage to audit account in a year?
6. What are the constituents of Treasury Single Account?

1.4     OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The following are the objectives of the study

1. To examine the benefits  of Treasury Single Account in Nigeria.
2. To examine the implementation of Treasury Single Account in Nigeria.
3. To identify the roles of Deposit Money Banks (DMB’s) in the operation of (TSA) Treasury Single Account.
4. To identify the challenges of Treasury Single Account.

1.5     RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

H_o – Treasury Single Account cannot be use to curb corruption in Nigeria.

H_i – Treasury Single Account can be use to curb corruption in Nigeria.

The statement of hypothesis listed above; thus:

H_o represent negative reply or answer while,

WHILE                                                                                                                  

H_i represent positive reply or answer.

1.6     SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

1. This work will serve as a knowledge base to other students and researchers’ interested in carrying out further research in this field. If this study is applied, it will consequently provide new explanation to the topic.
2. This study will shed light on the benefits of Treasury Single Account, thus, making MDA’s to  be more interest in its adoption.
3. The study will expose the challenges faced by MDA’s in implementation TSA, this will make the initiation (IMF) of TSA to make necessary commandment to the scheme to make it more efficient.

1.7     SCOPE AND LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

FINANCIAL CONSTRAINT: Insufficient fund trends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literatures or information and in the process of data collection (internet and questionnaire)

1. TIME CONSTRAINT: The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will have adverse effect on the available time needed for this work.

Treasury Single Account is a national phenomenom, which is                 recently adopted and fully implemented by the Nigerian government for their Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s). In the course of this study of researcher only limit the study of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) staff of kwara state located in Ilorin. In other words, Central Bank of Nigerian (CBN) Ilorin staff will form the population for this study and other CBN branches in other states will not be included in this study.

1.8     DEFINITION OF THE KEY TERMS

TREASURY SINGLE ACCOUNT: TSA is a bank account or a set of linked bank accounts through which the government  transacts all its receipts and payments and get a consolidated view of its cash position at the end of each day. It is a strategy for consolidation of government cash resources in a single account or several accounts connected that is desirable for sound management of government cash resources (CBN 2015).

REVENUE: Revenue is an increase in net worth resulting from a transaction. For general government units, there are four main sources of revenue: taxes and other compulsory transfers imposed by government units, property income derived from the ownership of assets, sales of goods and services and voluntary transfers received from other units.

ACCOUNTING SYSTEM: Accounting system is the system of record of a business that keeps to maintain its accounting system. This includes the purchase, sales and other financial processes of the business or Accounting system is the frame work of storage and processing of management system.

PUBLIC SECTOR: Public sector is all about organizations which are not privately owned and operated, but which are established, run and financed by government on behalf of the public. This definition conveys the idea that the public sector consists of organizations where control lies in the hand of the public.

TREASURY: Treasury is defined as the funds of a group, institution or government or to the department or even corporation and institution.

BANK: A bank is financial institution that provides banking and other financial services to their customers. A bank is generally understood as an institution which provides fundamental banking services such as accepting deposits and providing loans.

1.9     PLAN AND ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The research work is basically categorized into five chapters.

Chapter one contain the Introduction.

Chapter two deals with the Literature Review.

Chapter three present  the Research Methodology.                

Chapter  four contains data Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation.

Chapter five present Summary, Conclusion and Recommendations.