Senate slashes commission on TSA from N7.6bn to N656m

The Senate Wednesday recommended the slashing of commission due to systemSpecs owners of the Remita software used for the collection of Federal government revenue under the Treasury Single Account (TSA) from N7.6bn   to N656m.The Senators adopted the resolution following the report of the joint committees on Finance, Public Accounts and Banking, Insurance and other financial institutions that investigated the abuse and mismanagement of the TSA.
Delivering the report of the committees, Senator John Enoh (PDP, Cross River Central) observed that withholding and diversion of funds from Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) without the approval of the National Assembly violates the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic Of Nigeria as amended.
The Senators recommended that N656,504,100 be paid to the systemSpecs as against the claim of N7,656,925,566 as transaction costs for funds transferred from March to 30th November, 2015.They said they arrived at the amount using N700 per transaction as against the one percent earlier adopted for the TSA.
The lawmakers said 937,869 transactions were carried out through remita software of systemSpecs before the contract was suspended in November last year .According to the Senators, with an estimated total transfer of N25tr by the end of 2015, baring the Senate resolution halting further deductions, the Federal government could have paid about N25bn to Systemspec based on one percent transaction fee.
The Senate also directed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to open up e-collection providers for competition, effectiveness, efficiency and greater robustness.
Also, the Senate recommended that the CBN be directed to carry out in-house inquiry to sanitize its procedure for awards of contract. It also recommended that all agreed fees and payments for e- collection service should not be borne by MDAs but provided and disbursed from a central pool. They also resolved that the amount arrived at should be forwarded to National Assembly for appropriation and recommendation in the 2016 Appropriation Bill.
In his remarks, the Senate President Bukola Saraki said they will continue to ensure proper utilisation of funds." The country is saving close to N30bn as a result of this action. The cost of doing the transactions should not undermine the good intentions of the President, " he said.



Source: [DailyPost]