Niger adopts TSA after uncovered 400 MDA Accounts

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Governor of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello has adopted the Treasury Single Account,TSA, in bid to check corruption, block leakages, wastage and improve the internally generated revenue, IGR, of the state.

Bello disclosed this on Monday in his office in Minna when he received participants of Course 24 from the National Defence College, Abuja, who were on a three-day strategic study of the state’s IGR.

The Niger governor said the decision to adopt the TSA policy was taken following the discovery of 400 bank accounts being operated by various Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, which made monitoring and control of state revenue accounts difficult.

“We have adopted TSA so that we can have control and effectively monitor of our account. I discovered that Niger State has 400 accounts. How do we monitor 400 accounts. MDAs open accounts arbitrarily and at will, just to keep one fund or the other. That is why we have adopted TSA.

“There are lots of leakages, wastage and corruption in government. We have to bring it to the barest minimum. Corruption affects our revenue base. Corruption is a serious and indeed the major problem affecting our IGR. It slows down our IGR drive”.

The governor lamented the challenges faced in improving its IGR, even after the engagement of the services of tax consultants.

He however, announced plans to review tax laws in the state to quest to exploring some untapped areas and services for revenue generation.

He vowed to fully take advantage of the potentials in its areas of comparative economic advantage such as agriculture, land, mining and tourism to improve its revenue.

The leader of the delegation and Deputy Commandant of the College, Abubakar Adamu Tarfa said the theme of the study tour is: “Internally Generated Revenue as a Catalyst for Development in Niger State”.