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No one has tampered with TSA funds – FG

By on November 18, 2015

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has dismissed allegations of fraud in the handling of funds that accrued to the Federal Government via the Treasury Single Account.

Mohammed explained in a statement in Abuja on Monday that under President Muhammadu Buhari, there would be no diversion of public funds.

He described allegations of fraud and the rumoured diversion of the TSA funds to bankroll elections in Bayelsa and Kogi states as contrived distractions.

These were contained in a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Segun Adeyemi.

Mohammed said if those behind the accusation had allowed themselves some measure of honesty, they would have realised that there had not and there would be no such impunity under the Buhari administration.

He said, “It is understandable that the psyche of those who are making the frivolous allegations concerning the TSA has been badly affected by the impunity that permeated the country under the immediate past administration, when unappropriated funds were freely used to finance elections and the public till was seen as an extension of personal piggy banks.

“But the lies that have been wilfully disseminated by scandalmongers over the TSA cannot and will not fly, because it was precisely to put an end to such impunity that Nigerians voted massively for President Muhammadu Buhari, who has an unblemished reputation for integrity, due process, transparency and the rule of law.”

The minister assured Nigerians that no one had tampered with the TSA funds, saying though the scheme was initiated by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, the reason it had begun to enjoy a new lease of life and attract national attention was of the political will and transparency demonstrated by Buhari.

He noted that those behind the rumour that a company, Systemspecs, made N25bn from charging one per cent on the TSA funds that passed through its software, Remita, might need to return to elementary school to get some lessons in arithmetic.

This, according to him, is because in order for the one per cent charge to fetch N25bn, the funds accruing into the TSA must have reached N2.5tn.

The minister argued that the total amount in the TSA to date was much less than N2tn.

Mohammed further explained that at the time the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria ordered that all monies that were erroneously charged as “revenue” be returned to the TSA late last month, the account had less than N800bn.

“It, therefore, beggars belief that anyone could attempt to mislead the public by raising a false alarm that a firm made N25bn in TSA charges,” Mohammed said.

He appealed to Nigerians not to allow those who had been funding their lavish lifestyles and encouraging corruption to the detriment of ordinary citizens and without bothering about national interest to sabotage the TSA programme with contrived lies, dangerous innuendoes and outright misinformation.
[Punch]