SaharaReporters has gathered more details regarding why
members of the Nigerian Senate moved to clamp down on President
Muhammadu Buhari’s administration over the Treasury Single Account
(TSA).
One source told SaharaReporters that some members of the National Assembly were not pleased that members of the executive branch would know details of their hitherto opaque financial transactions. They consulted CBN officials about ways of quietly opting out of the TSA. Our source stated that CBN officials could not make a commitment to remove legislative accounts from the TSA opting to inform President Buhari instead. However, when Mr. Buhari was informed of the arrangement, he immediately objected to excluding NASS accounts.
On learning of the president’s objection, Mr. Saraki mobilized other National Assembly leaders and invited CBN officials to a meeting in October. At the meeting, the legislators reportedly threatened to deal with the CBN if the regulatory bank’s officials did not exclude them from the TSA. A source familiar with the meeting told SaharaReporters disclosed that the lawmakers told CBN officials they had found out certain officials of the Buhari administration were using a third party, SystemSpecs Limited, to milk Nigeria through the TSA policy.
Our source revealed that, following the testy meeting, CBN officials decided to discontinue the 1% fee that was deducted from the federation account and paid to Systemspecs Limited for managing the TSA protocol. Officials of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government had arranged for the 1% fee.
Our investigation revealed that the TSA protocol was first mooted in December 2011. In January 2012, the Jonathan Presidency signed an agreement with SystemSpecs, owners of the software used for TSA deposits. The implementation phase of the agreement was then signed in December 2013 authorizing the use of TSA as a payment platform.
Infuriated that they failed to get their accounts out of the TSA, Nigerian senators have raised a motion calling for a probe of the TSA. They claimed that the TSA was President Buhari’s agenda to steal money from the Nigerian treasury. However, CBN officials and the owners of Systemspecs openly declared that Mr. Buhari did not sign the service agreement between the Systemspecs and the Federal Government. In a letter sent to President Buhari, they explained that the service fee paid to SystemSpecs Limited ballooned after the Buhari administration ordered commercial banks to surrender all government funds in their possession, adding that the CBN then stopped the service charges.
A senator told SaharaReporters that Mr. Saraki was also upset about the TSA because of its deep impact on Heritage Bank, a commercial bank in which he and other members of his extended family have significant ownership stake. The source disclosed that Societe Generale Bank, which Mr. Saraki’s family virtually liquidated through reckless banking practices and corruption, had re-emerged as Heritage Bank. The CBN recently approved a merger of Heritage Bank and Enterprise Bank. With the introduction of the TSA policy, “the Senate President cannot just place the Senate’s funds in a bank where he has financial stake.”
As Governor of Kwara State, Mr. Saraki often funneled state funds into banks in which he had significant interests.
Our senatorial source also alleged that Mr. Saraki’s burgeoning legal fees had made the former governor desperate to fight the TSA in order to have unfettered access to the Senate’s budget. According to the senator, Mr. Saraki had hired a score of lawyers to scuttle his ongoing trial at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. “His legal expenses are not a joke. That’s another reason he does not like how the TSA policy is standing in the way of his ability to dip his hands into the National Assembly funds to help settle some of his legal bills,” said the legislative source.
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