From Uche Usim, Abuja

The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, has disclosed that N13.2billion has been set aside for the payment of promotion arrears of civil servants in the country.

Speaking at the seminar for Finance Correspondents in Abuja, he said government designed a machinery to detect and settle those owed a backlog on unsettled entitlements.

He said the introduction of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) blocked several revenue leakages in government’s finances, promising that legitimate claims and entitlements would be promptly settled.

“TSA has enabled us to make tremendous gains to the Federal Government and to the Nigerian economy. We have successfully eliminated multiple banking arrangements resulting in consolidation of over 20,000 bank accounts, which were spread over Deposit Money Banks across the country.

“This has further brought about transparency and effective tracking of government revenues. It has also led to the blocking of leakages and abuse, which characterised the public financial management before the implementation of the TSA,” the AGF disclosed.

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He said various financial management reforms adopted by government led to better financial management, leaner structures and higher level of creativity.

Idris also revealed that government saved N4.7 billion monthly from charges imposed by banks for managing its funds since the introduction of TSA.

He said the money sprang from bank charges, interest on loans, account maintenance fees and others.

“In addition, TSA has assisted government to overcome the burden of indiscriminate borrowings by Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the corresponding banks charges.

“TSA has taken us out of the era of indiscriminate borrowings by MDAs and saved government the charges associated with those borrowings which hitherto amounted to N4.7bn monthly.

“I can therefore confidently assert that TSA has been beneficial to all stakeholders and the country as a whole,” he said.