Transparency, Probity and Accountability: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Nigerian Public Sector

Abstract

Account (TSA) is an important tool to manage all the operations of governments smoothly. Previously (before the order of August 11 th , 2015) a unified view was completely absent among government financial resources. For this reason, cash lies idle for extended periods in numerous bank accounts which are held by spending agencies. These agencies were fraudulently diverting government funds. So many revenue generating MDAs were defrauding the nation's commonwealth. Government ineffective control over its cash resources then started paying for its institutional deficiencies in multiple ways. For example, this lacuna has made it possible for revenue generating MDAs to have generated about N3 trillion in 2009, but only remitted less than N47 billion to government coffers; generated N3.07 trillion in 2010 but remitted less than N55 billion; and generated more than N3.17 trillion in 2011 and just remitted a meagre N73.80 billion (Okwe, Nelson, Adeoye, & Ogah, 2015:53). As per the Nigerian public financial management policy agenda, Nigeria has put priority in case (Braimah, 2016).The background of Treasury Single Account (TSA) is in accordance with Executive Order No. 55 of 2011, which stipulated that the Bureau of Treasury shall operate a Treasury Single Account (TSA) to receive remittance of collections of internal revenue taxes/customs duties from Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR)/Bureau of Customs (BOC) authorized agents, banks as well as other National Government Agencies from authorized government depository banks (Isa, 2016).To further buttressing the above point, Sections 80 and 162 of the 1999 Constitution are apt on this matter when it says: