Nigeria’s Treasury Single Account (TSA) has recorded a turnover of over N30 trillion since the account was created in 2012.
Addressing journalists on the sidelines of a study visit by Gambian delegates in Abuja, the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF) Idris Ahmed represented by the Director Funds in the office Mohammed K. Usman, said: “From 2012 when we started the full TSA, and you are looking at the volume of transactions, I think you will be looking at something in the region of N30trillion.
“That is in terms of transaction volume, not in terms of balances or anything, so we are looking at turnover, so the turnover should be over N30 trillion.”
The TSA, he said, is a fluid account so it will be difficult to state specifically how much is in the account at any point in time.
Mohammed K Usman said The Gambians have a lot to learn from Nigeria’s public finance management initiatives.
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, while speaking on the controversy over bringing foreign missions into the TSA, said the federal government is considering another option of capturing all accruals by foreign missions to into a single account.
Ahmed lamented that one of the challenges facing the full implementation of the TSA in Nigeria was how to bring in revenue generated by foreign missions usually in different currencies into the TSA.
To address this challenge, the government, the finance minister said “is looking at a different option to interface with TSA for foreign missions.
She told the Gambian delegation that with the introduction of TSA, balances in the account are regularly reconciled.
She also urged The Gambians to take advantage of their two weeks study stay in Nigeria to visit some states in the country that have implemented a different variant of TSA from the federal government.
Madam Ada Gaye, Permanent Secretary in the ministry of finance and national planning of The Gambia said they were in the country to learn from how Nigeria has managed its TSA as part of the public finance reforms taking place in the Gambia especially the monitoring of funds.