TSA: Nigerians now to pay for charges

The Federal Government has indicated that, from November 1 2018, the service charge on all payment to its ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs] would be borne by the payer.

In line with the global best practices and amidst dwindling revenues, the federal government has approved a new Treasury Single Account [TSA] tariff model which mandates that the service charge on payment to its ministries, departments and agencies [MDAs] from November 1, 2018 would be borne by the payer.

This revelation emerged at the recently concluded One-Day Stakeholder Sensitisation Exercise on TSA e-Collection Charges held in Abuja on Tuesday October 30 2018, organised by the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.

Under the new model, according to information emanating from the office the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, all funds collection into the TSA would require payers to bear the transaction cost.

The new model would therefore replace the previous one wherein the merchant—in this case, the federal government—bore the charges on all transactions to the service providers on behalf of payers.

In the previous tariff regime, the federal government owed the technology service providers and the participating deposit money banks up to two years in service charge.

In 2012, the pilot TSA scheme commenced using a unified structure of accounting for the 217 MDAs for accountability and transparency in public fund management.

In August 2015, the initiative was fully implemented and covered over 1000 MDAs after a presidential directive.

At commencement, all players, including all commercial banks, SystemSpecs and the Central Bank of Nigeria [CBN], agreed that a fee of 1% of funds collected is payable.