Kebbi Recovers N31m from 260 Dormant Accounts

TSA Kebbi State said analysis of the returns from the banks from December 2015, indicated that 260 out of 334 active accounts were found dormant with over N31million, while 57 held negative balances. The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Shuaibu D. Abdullahi, disclosed this on Tuesday, at the opening of a three day sensitisation workshop on TSA for Heads of MDAs, Directors of finance, Budget officers, revenue officers as well as Auditors held at the Wazir Umar Federal Polytechnic Birnin Kebbi.TSA is a financial policy introduced by the Federal Government in 2012, to consolidate all inflows from the country’s ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) by way of deposit into commercial banks, traceable into a single account at the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the lender of last resort.Abdullahi explained that the implementation of the TSA by Kebbi State is one of the conditions for accessing the budget support facility offered by the Federal Government.“As part of the implementation process, the Ministry of Finance requested all deposit money banks in the state, and confirmed balances of all accounts of MDAs, and therefore the account were pruned in order to enable the Ministry of Finance have a clear over view of their operations,” he added.The Permanent Secretary listed two TSA models that can be adopted states, one being the main TSA and associated ledger sub-accounts to be maintained in a single banking institution. The other one is that TSA maintained in a single banking institution and associated zero balance ledger sub-accounts (ZBAs) are maintained in other institutions from where balances are swept daily to the main TSA in the CBN.He listed the benefits of implementing TSA in the state to include the reduction of corruption, blocking of leakages in internal revenue generation and remittance, entrenching accountability, enhancing transparency avoiding misappropriation of public funds and embezzlement.