1 hour ago
2
Ten years ago, in August 2015, Nigeria took a decision that would fundamentally alter the trajectory of its public finance management. The full implementation of the Treasury Single Account under the supervision of the late President Muhammadu Buhari was not merely another government policy. It was a structural intervention that addressed decades of fiscal dysfunction, constitutional violations, and institutionalised opacity. As we mark a decade of this reform, the evidence of its impact provides a compelling case study in what becomes possible when political will meets technical capacity.
Powered by the indigenous fintech company, Remita, the TSA’s first major achievement was immediate and dramatic. Upon implementation, it recovered over N3 trillion in government funds that had been sitting idle in commercial banks. These were not lost funds. They were government resources that existed but remained invisible to treasury management, neither earning returns for the federation nor available through the budget process. The government had been paying billions to borrow its own money. This paradox alone justified the reform.
But the true measure of the TSA’s success over the past decade lies not in that initial recovery, impressive as it was. It lies in the sustained transformation of how government manages public resources, enforces accountability, and maintains transparency. This retrospective examines what ten years of the TSA has meant for Nigeria’s fiscal architecture.
The Problem the TSA Solved
To understand the TSA’s impact, we must remember the problem it addressed. Before 2015, Nigeria’s revenue management could be best described as orchestrated disorder designed to benefit a few at the expense of the nation. The Federal Government operated over 17,000 disparate bank accounts scattered across viable and non-viable institutions throughout the country.
Each Ministry, Department, and Agency maintained multiple accounts, often without central coordination or oversight. The result was a financial maze in which government could not ascertain its true cash position at any moment. Treasury officials lacked visibility into total government assets, making effective financial management impossible.
This opacity created outcomes that were deliberately unfavourable to the nation. Government routinely borrowed from commercial banks at high interest rates to finance budget shortfalls, whilst significant volumes of idle government funds sat in those very same banks earning zero returns. The debt paradox represented a massive fiscal haemorrhage, with interest payments enriching commercial banks at public expense.
Beyond economic affliction lay constitutional violation. Section 80 of the 1999 Constitution mandates that all government revenues be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The fragmented account structure made compliance virtually impossible. Revenue disappeared into institutional black holes, never reaching the consolidated fund. The constitutional requirement for parliamentary appropriation became fiction when billions flowed through channels invisible to legislative oversight.
This architecture of opacity enabled corruption on a massive scale. With thousands of unknown and unmonitored accounts, the diversion of public funds became routine. MDAs under-remitted collections, deducted taxes and held them, warehoused government funds in commercial banks to generate private interest. The system was not merely unsustainable. It was structured to enable grand theft.
Ten Years of Measurable Impact
The TSA’s success depended on solid revenue management technology as an integral part of the Central Bank of Nigeria’s infrastructure. When the CBN selected Remita Revenue and Payment Management Technology as the backbone for TSA operations, it represented a moment of national triumph. A homegrown technology solution was deployed for full revenue management operations, in line with a presidential directive of August 2015.
By consolidating government revenue flows into a unified account framework at the Central Bank, the policy restored constitutional order, eliminated the debt paradox, and created visibility necessary for genuine fiscal management. The transformation was immediate and profound. Over the past decade, the impact has consistently grown, earning applause from home and abroad.
The numbers tell the story of fiscal discipline restored. Beyond the initial N3 trillion recovery, by July 2019, the TSA had processed and accounted for collections of over N10 trillion. This demonstrated the massive scale of government revenue flows that had previously operated outside consolidated oversight.
Perhaps more significant than recovery has been sustained fiscal discipline the system enforces. In 2020, the then Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, confirmed that implementation had been immensely beneficial, with the country saving an average of N45 billion monthly in interest payments. These savings stem from eliminating the debt paradox. The government now has visibility into actual cash position and can manage liquidity without resorting to expensive short-term borrowing of its own funds.
On monetary policy, the Minister noted better control over money supply, enabling government to rein in inflation and undue pressure on the Naira. Foreign reserve position recorded appreciable improvement through consolidation of federal government foreign currency earnings under the TSA framework.
The consolidation eliminated another significant source of wastage. Previously, government paid over N24 billion monthly in bank charges and account maintenance fees across thousands of accounts. The TSA framework totally eliminated this leakage, redirecting funds from bank charges to productive use. Additionally, government saved over $125 million monthly in interest on ways and means advances because improved cash visibility reduced the need for such emergency financing.
Beyond direct financial savings, the TSA has transformed institutional behaviour across government. Agencies that previously remitted negligible amounts to the federation account have been compelled to demonstrate fiscal responsibility. After implementation, agencies began posting substantially higher remittances, simply because the system made hiding funds impossible. This pattern repeated across MDAs, proving that visibility drives accountability.
During the 2016 recession, the TSA provided a critical liquidity buffer that helped stabilise the economy. Government’s enhanced visibility into its cash position allowed for more rational resource allocation during crisis, avoiding immediate recourse to emergency external borrowing. The TSA functioned not merely as an accounting mechanism but as an economic stabilisation tool.
Looking Forward: Strengthening the Foundatio
The Treasury Single Account, now in its second decade of operation, stands as the most successful fiscal reform in Nigeria’s modern history. Successive administrations have claimed the TSA as a key achievement, understanding that its contribution to fiscal transparency and revenue optimisation represents a legacy worth preserving and building upon.
The current administration inherits this major successful initiative with underlying processes and infrastructure at a moment when benefits are needed more than ever. With fiscal pressures mounting and revenue imperatives sharpening, the TSA represents tested foundation upon which new initiatives can be built.
The reality remains that revenue leakages persist, requiring continued enforcement, consensus, and the right use of technology. Federal government money still lies outside the TSA, outside the Central Bank. This highlights both the TSA’s success in what it has achieved and the work that remains to extend its reach fully.
To sustain the TSA’s effectiveness as it enters its second decade, several steps are essential. First, a comprehensive review involving critical stakeholders must be undertaken to identify operational, administrative, and technology processes that need retention, optimisation, or upgrading to ensure the initiative continues meeting expectations.
Second, the updated TSA framework must be anchored on robust legislation that insulates it from political interference, deepening transparency as a non-negotiable pillar of Nigeria’s financial architecture regardless of which administration holds power.
Third, resist the typical challenge of replacing indigenous technology with foreign alternatives. The success of homegrown Remita technology in powering the TSA for a decade demonstrates that local solutions can meet national needs whilst growing the domestic technology market and making Nigeria a true net earner from technology.
Fourth, expand the TSA framework to capture foreign exchange inflows into government accounts, thereby extending the same transparency and accountability principles that have worked so well for naira transactions to dollar and other foreign currency revenue streams, ensuring comprehensive visibility across all government financial flows.
The Verdict After Ten Years
A decade provides sufficient time to judge whether a reform works. The TSA has passed that test definitively. It has recovered trillions, eliminated billions in wasteful spending, restored constitutional compliance, transformed institutional behaviour, stabilised the economy during crisis, and earned international recognition.
More fundamentally, it has proven that transparency and accountability in public finance are not theoretical aspirations but achievable realities. The TSA demonstrated that when government commits to seeing where its money is, controlling how it is used, and enforcing proper procedures, fiscal discipline follows.
The TSA represents more than a revenue management system. It embodies a choice about what kind of government Nigeria aspires to have: one that operates transparently within constitutional bounds, or one that tolerates the opacity enabling corruption. After a decade of demonstrated success, the imperative is clear.
The TSA must be protected, strengthened, improved, and institutionalised as a permanent feature of Nigeria’s governance framework. Any move to weaken or dismantle it would represent not reform but regression. It would signal a return to the chaos, constitutional breach, and fiscal haemorrhage that characterised the pre-2015 era.
That outcome, after ten years of proven success, would be unconscionable. Nigeria has shown it can build and sustain world-class fiscal infrastructure. The TSA is proof. The task now is to build on this foundation, not tear it down. As we mark a decade of transformation, that lesson should guide all discussions about Nigeria’s fiscal future.
Valentine is the Advocacy Lead for Equal Trade Alliance, based in The Hague. He is currently doing his M.sc major in Applied Artificial Intelligence at Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences, in the Netherlands.
