Mr Dasuki Arabi, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) says the introduction of Treasury Single Account (TSA) has reduced corruption in Nigeria to more than 80 per cent.
Arabi made this known when he featured at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum on Sunday in Abuja.
He said though the initial implementation of TSA was difficult for Nigerians to accept, but its reality had begun to have effect both in the country’s economy and in the reduction of high level of corruption in public services.
“TSA is effective in a sense that if you are importing goods worth N1 billion and you are not smuggling them through the borders and they are coming into the country, you must pay duties.
“You must pay duties and you can’t pay duties with cash, it must be paid online to TSA, and I think it has reduced abuses around that by more than 80 per cent, if not 90 per cent.
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“We had problems with agencies at the kickoff of the programme because some of them run their services based on what they were able to generate as revenue.”
Arabi said presently whatever was generated went into an account that could not be touched.
“So if we have an account that customers pay into, it will be difficult for anybody to touch that money,” he explained.
According to the bureau boss, the digitisation initiative process introduced by the Federal Government has assisted electronically to monitor goods coming into the country.
“Other things may be happening around and under the table, but as I said, the backlog of all these works we are doing is the digitisation that is going on.
“Where you have a container coming in from China and the bill of lading, all the documents are electronically transmitted to Nigeria.”
According to him, agencies such as the Federal Inland Revenue Services, Nigerian Customs, Shippers Council and Port Authority are responsible for the monitoring, thereby, making it difficult for anybody to change anything.
“Because it has gone in the system, so I am confident that it has reduced corruption by more than 80 to 90 per cent,” the DG said.
Arabi said the Federal Government had gone deeply into the reforming of the system to curtail the corruption across board in the country.
“And as we get deep into the reforms, there will be no space for us to touch one or two things and where you don’t meet anybody; you pay all your things online.
“It will be difficult for anybody to convince you to get one or two kobo out of it, “ he said. (NAN)