More drama has ensued as the Senate gets set to probe the Treasury Single Account fraud.
President Muhammadu Buhari
The Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Alhaji Ahmed Idris, has distanced his office from the use of Remita software, owned by SystemSpecs, for the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, reports Daily Times.
This is even as the Senate on Tuesday said it would not bow to any form of intimidation on its resolve to probe the alleged fraud of N25 billion in the management of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). The Senate had last week accused SystemSpec/Remita of ripping off the Federal Government to the tune of a whopping N25 billion just by using its software to transfer Federal Government’s funds from financial institutions into a single treasury account (TSA).
The Senate further alleged that the said sum of N25 billion accrued to Remita after it charged 1 per cent of all the monies that passed through it which amounted to N2.5trillion.
In an interview with the Daily Times in his office in Abuja, the AGF said he never signed any contract with Remita, adding “officially, I don’t know Remita. Who engaged them?” He stated that if actually his office was aware of the deal, ‘’why is it that the National Assembly did not invite me but CBN?”
Also reacting to the TSA commission scandal on Tuesday, the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed insisted that the funds that have accrued to the Treasury Single Account remain intact and challenged anyone who has any fact and figure to the contrary to make such information public.
In a statement issued in Abuja, Mohammed reiterated the fact that less than N2 trillion has accrued to the TSA, hence the one per cent charges on the amount could not have been N25 billion.
He said “For the sake of Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora who have been following the TSA debate, we hereby restate the facts: The TSA deal was initiated by the immediate past administration but only enjoyed a new lease of life under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari because of his sterling leadership qualities of accountability, transparency, uprightness and respect for the rule of law.
“Any agreement on the TSA charges was reached long before the present administration assumed office. “Even if the agreement on the charges is one per cent, it could not have amounted to N25 billion because the total amount of money that has accrued to the TSA is less than 2 trillion Naira.
“Even if one per cent was agreed as charges, whatever accrues therefrom was meant to be shared among the CBN, Systemspecs (the owner of the Remita software) and the commercial banks, hence no single company could have collected 25 billion Naira as charges.
“As at the time the controversy over the TSA broke, the total amount of money in the TSA was less than 800 billion Naira. “The TSA has neither been enveloped in any fraud nor has any money from the account been diverted.”
Meanwhile, the Senate on Tuesday while insisting that it would not be intimidated on its resolve to probe alleged N25 billion fraud in the management of the TSA said it has a constitutional duty to institute probe into activities of government considered suspicious most especially on issues bothering on financial impropriety. The Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, said this when reacting to a motion moved by Senator Dino Melaye (APC-Kogi West) who called the attention of the plenary to a newspaper article, which he said, was published to blackmail the Senate on TSA.
Saraki said: “No amount of either blackmail or intimidation will stop us from doing the work we have to do”.
“We have a responsibility here to ensure that there are no leakages in government funds and if there are, we will call the attention of the public and do whatever it takes to salvage the situation; it is our responsibility. “The fact about the TSA will come out and everybody will have opportunity before the committee to state the fact, the facts will speak for themselves.’’
Melaye while moving his motion said the article written by a Managing Director of a national daily (not Daily Times) was intended to rubbish the Senate’s attempt to probe the allegation of a rip-off by an agent appointed to manage the transfer of monies from Commercial Banks into the coffer of the Central Bank on the TSA initiative.