Sustaining Transparency and Accountability in Government Revenue Management Through the Treasury Single Account (TSA)

Few public finance reforms in Nigeria’s modern history have delivered as measurable and sustained an impact as the Treasury Single Account. In 2015, when this policy was implemented, it did something remarkable: it recovered over ₦3 trillion government funds that had been sitting idle in commercial banks whilst government was borrowing money at high interest rates to pay salaries and fund projects. The irony was staggering. Nigeria was paying billions to borrow its own money.

For over a decade now, the TSA has stood as the cornerstone of fiscal transparency, transforming what was once a chaotic and deliberately opaque revenue management system of over 17,000 scattered government accounts into a unified framework that has eliminated constitutional breaches, saved tens of billions monthly, and positioned Nigeria as a continental model for sound public financial management. This article reviews the evolution of the federal government’s revenue management operations since 2015, examining how the TSA transformed Nigeria’s fiscal architecture and the lessons that can be drawn for current reform efforts as the nation seek to consolidate on the significant gains of revenue collection.

From Chaos to Constitutional Compliance

To appreciate the transformative impact of the TSA, one must first understand the chaos that characterised Nigeria’s public revenue management before 2015. It can be best described as orchestrated chaos at its best, designed to benefit a few at the expense of the government and people of Nigeria. Not only were revenue collection and management processes clumsy and inefficient; it represented a fundamental breach of constitutional order and sound fiscal practice.

At the height of this disorder, the Federal Government operated over 17,000 disparate bank accounts scattered across viable and non-viable banks throughout the country. Each Ministry, Department, and Agency (MDA) maintained multiple accounts, often without central coordination or oversight. The result was a financial maze in which the government could not ascertain its true cash position at any moment. Treasury officials lacked visibility into total government cash assets, making effective financial management impossible.

This opacity created perverse outcomes that were most unfavourable to the nation. Most notably, the 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 government was, in effect, paying to borrow its own money. This debt paradox alone represented a massive fiscal haemorrhage, with interest payments enriching commercial banks at the expense of the public treasury.

Beyond the economic affliction imposed by unscrupulous actors was a greater problem of the continued violation of the Constitution. Section 80 of the 1999 Constitution mandates that all government revenues be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Compliance with this provision became virtually impossible based on the chaos that had been deliberately introduced into the nation’s revenue management process. Revenue disappeared into institutional black holes, never making it to the consolidated fund. The constitutional requirement for parliamentary appropriation of public funds became a fiction when billions of naira flowed through channels invisible to legislative oversight.

This architecture of opacity also created a field day for corruption on a massive scale, there were thousands of unknown and unmonitored accounts, and the diversion of public funds became routine. MDAs under-remitted collections, deducted taxes and held on to them, and warehoused government funds in commercial banks to generate interest for private benefit. The system was not merely unsustainable; it was structured to enable grand theft.

The success of the TSA depended on the availability of a solid revenue management technology as an integral part of the technology architecture of the banker to the government – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It was a moment of national triumph and pride when the CBN selected the Remita Revenue and Payment Management Technology as the backbone technology for the TSA.  Developed by homegrown technology giant Remita, the system was deployed for full revenue management operations, further to 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 the visibility necessary for genuine fiscal management. The transformation was immediate and profound and the impact has consistently grown with applause from home and abroad.

A Decade of Measurable Success

The impact of the TSA can be measured through verifiable data accumulated over a decade of continuous operation. The numbers tell a story of fiscal discipline restored, revenue recovered, and accountability established where none had existed.

The most immediate impact was the recovery of idle funds. Upon full implementation, the TSA facilitated the retrieval of over N3 trillion from commercial banks where government money had been sitting unmonitored and unproductive. By July 2019, the TSA had processed and could account for collections of over ₦10 trillion, demonstrating the massive scale of government revenue flows that had previously operated outside consolidated oversight.

Perhaps more significant than the initial recovery has been the sustained fiscal discipline the system enforces. In 2020, according to the then Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, “the implementation of the TSA has been immensely beneficial as the country is now saving an average of N45 billion monthly in interest payments.” These savings stem directly from the elimination of the debt paradox; the government now has visibility into its actual cash position and can manage liquidity without resorting to expensive short-term borrowing of its own funds. “On the monetary policy side, we have better control over money supply and therefore able to rein in inflation and undue pressure on the Naira. Our foreign reserve position has also recorded appreciable improvement through the consolidation of the federal government foreign currency earnings under the TSA,” she stated.

The consolidation of accounts also eliminated a significant source of wastage. Previously, the government paid over N24 billion monthly in bank charges and account maintenance fees across its thousands of accounts. The TSA framework totally eliminated this leakage, redirecting funds from bank charges to productive use. Additionally, it was reported that the government saved over $125 million monthly in interest on ways and means advances, the overdraft facility provided by the Central Bank, because improved cash visibility has 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. The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board provides a striking example. Before the TSA, JAMB’s remittances to the treasury were minimal despite the massive revenue generated from examination fees. After TSA implementation, the agency began posting record remittances, simply because the system made it impossible to hide funds. This pattern repeated across MDAs, proving that visibility drives accountability.

Advertisement

During the 2016 recession, the TSA provided a critical liquidity buffer that helped stabilise the economy. The government’s enhanced visibility into its cash position allowed for more rational resource allocation during the crisis, avoiding the need for immediate recourse to emergency external borrowing. In this sense, the TSA functioned not merely as an accounting mechanism but as an economic stabilisation tool.

Sustaining the Reform

The Treasury Single Account, now in its second decade of operation, stands as the most successful fiscal reform in Nigeria’s modern history. It has brought trillions of naira directly under government’s control, eliminated wasteful expenditure, restored constitutional compliance, and earned international recognition. 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 its benefits are needed more than ever. With fiscal pressures mounting and revenue imperatives sharpening, the TSA is a tested foundation upon which new initiatives can be built. Several countries have also sent delegations to learn from Nigeria’s TSA implementation experience, which is a major attestation of its success.

Speaking at a Fiscal Policy Dinner during the 31st Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, the Honourable Minister of Finance, Wale Edun, underscored the persistence of revenue leakages and the central role of enforcement and technology in addressing them. “It is our determination to make sure we bring in every single penny. “There’s federal government money lying outside the TSA, lying outside of the Central Bank, and it requires enforcement, consensus and the right use of technology.”

To sustain the TSA’s effectiveness, several steps are essential. First, a comprehensive review of TSA involving critical stakeholders must be undertaken to identify operational, administrative and technology processes that need to be retained, optimised, or upgraded. to ensure the initiative continues to deliver to meet expectations. Second, the updated TSA framework must be anchored on robust legislation that insulates it from political interference, as part of effort to deepen 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 technology as a way of growing the local technology market and becoming 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 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. The alternative may turn out to be a return to chaos, constitutional breach, and the fiscal haemorrhage that characterised the pre-reform era. That outcome would be unconscionable.

To be continued.