Auditor General of the Federation, Mr. Anthony Ayene, has disclosed that the Treasury Single Account (TSA) was yet to be audited by his office, since two years of commencement of the scheme, explaining that it was so because it was an ongoing policy.
Ayene made the disclosure yesterday at an interactive session with the House of Representatives ad hoc committee, set up to verify the status of TSA.
Briefing the committee, the Auditor General said; “We are yet to do an audit of the TSA directly. What we have been doing is audit of the consolidated revenue account of the federation, which is done in every 12 months.
“When I came in and discovered that, I discussed with my directors that we should be able to do an audit of TSA for transparency and accountability. So, about three weeks ago, I asked the performance team to carry out a performance audit of TSA.
“I think there was an omission. It can’t be said to be negligence, because the TSA is still an ongoing programme”, Ayene said, adding however that “it is not right that we’re yet to audit TSA”.
On when the performance audit would be completed, the Ayene said it required a minimum of three months to do that.
Chairman of the committee, Abubakar Nuhu in his remark, subsequently directed Ayene to make sure the report is made available to the panel in November, 2017.
The committee was however worried that the mode of implementation of the TSA was seriously affecting commercial banks, which at the moment, appeared not able to lend funds to the private sector.
Also briefing the committee, Mr Alexander Adeyemi, who represented the Accountant General of the Federation explained that the office, received a presidential directive to use the TSA fund for treasury bill investment.
But on whether all funds expected to be remitted into the TSA were being posted, Adeyemi explained that “on daily basis, we discover funds that are supposed to go into the TSA, but they don’t. But we do our best to ensure that such funds go into the TSA”.
