TSA policy, NNPC others may finally get exemption.

There are indications that the Federal Government is now working out possibilities to exempt some of its agencies, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), from the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy on account of the nature of their operations.

NNPC

It was gathered that the decision to exempt some of these agencies from the policy thought to promote transparency in government finances was reached after a meeting of their officials with the Accountant-General of the Federation, Ahmed Idris, who had insisted recently that there were not going to be any form of exclusion.

Sources said that President Muhammadu Buhari had been fully briefed by the AGF on why some agencies had to be allowed to receive revenue into bank accounts other than the TSA, domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria.

Those working out the possible exemption say the agencies’ operations would suffer if they are compelled to move in all their revenue into the CBN before they secure approvals through the bureaucracy before they can draw money to finance operations.

Apart from NNPC, it was learnt that Bank of Industry, BOI, Federal Mortgage Bank, Bank of Agriculture, Urban Development Bank, Nigeria Export Import Bank, Nigeria Independent Power Project, NIPP, Galaxy Backbone, Nigeria Railways would possibly be exempted also.

So many fears and views have trailed the full implementation of the TSA policy with the most concerns coming from banks on possible liquidity challenges if all federal government funds are transferred to into the Central Bank of Nigeria.

The government quasi-commercial entities had also mounted pressure on the government, arguing that the TSA could prevent the smooth operations of their organisations.

The policy guidelines are still being awaited from the AGF, but it looks like there is going to be a long list of many departments and agencies of government that would be exempted from the policy when finally released.

Despite possible exemptions, the government insists that it would no go back on the implementation of this policy.

The AGF assured at the weekend that the detailed guidelines would be announced within a short time.

By Onyinye Nwachukwu,