Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, on Sunday, declared he was not attending the meeting called by the Federal Government with state governors on the Treasury Single Account, TSA.
Fayose said his decision stems from his belief that the Ekiti state government was not interested in the TSA policy introduced by President Muhammadu Buhari, which, according to him, is a fraud against Nigeria and its people.
The governor said this in a press statement issued by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka.
Fayose asked the Federal Government to rather remove the veil on the face of REMITA, the alleged firm handling the TSA contract, “so that Nigerians can know the real owners, through whom the All Progressives Congress (APC) is siphoning Nigeria money to fund Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship election.”
“From all intent and purposes, this TSA policy is aimed at recouping money spent on the last general elections by the APC, as well as raise money for future elections, especially the Kogi and Bayelsa States gubernatorial poll.
“It is also meant to enrich some individuals for doing virtually nothing and that can be seen from the discovery of N25 billion that already accrued to just a single company in one month!
“How can the Federal Government justify a transaction in which a single company gets one percent, amounting to N25 billion in one month?
“In this economic situation that Nigeria is, shouldn’t the one percent commission have been negotiated downward to like 0.1 percent which would have reduced the N25 billion to N2.5 billion?
“Even manufacturing companies, with thousands of employees don’t make N25 billion profit in one month.
“Therefore, what Nigerians are expecting from the Federal Government is explanation on the alleged N25 billion scam already associated with the operation of the TSA, instead of calling state governors to a meeting that is aimed at imposing the TSA policy on the states.”
Governor Fayose said the Federal Government cannot force its policies on states that are federating units in the Nigeria federation.
“Ekiti State is entitled to its own policies and it is not under any obligation to accept Federal Government policies, especially the TSA that is already robed in the garment of fraud.
“I therefore wish to state categorically that Ekiti State is not interested in the TSA policy and since the State is not interested, I, as the custodian of the popular mandate of the entire people of the state will not attend any meeting called by the Federal Government on
the TSA,” he said.
But a recent report which supposedly emanated from the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, may have rubbished Fayose’s belief as it was stated that the parent body of REMITA had existed for about 20 years while REMITA, which is not even a company, has been in existence for about 10 years.
The report also showed that REMITA is not solely entitled to the one percent. Other participating banks are to share from the amount. – The News.
Leave Fayose to his avowed ignorance and rabble-rousing. One wonders most times if he even applies 10% of his education to think before talking. PDP, his party, signed many agreements designed largely to defraud the nation in their 16 years as the government in power, including this one signed by them since 2011! The figures being bandied by the likes of Fayose as fees earned by REMITA from revenue collections for the FG in the last two months of full implementation are even far from the truth.
They stalled its full implementation because of their sudden realization that there was far more money to be made by keeping government revenues opaque. That way they could continue to dip their filthy fingers straight into all the unaccounted revenues of the myriad of government parastatals and MDAs. Pretty much the same way they suddenly realized that the use of card readers for the last election would significantly curtail their ability to rig.
It has been widely reported by the media and all the stakeholders (Systemspecs, CBN and the banks) that the N7.6B deducted to date as fees on a total of approximately N1.3 Trillion collection for government had been refunded on the instruction of the APC federal government. While the service cannot be expected to be free, the general opinion is that the 1% fee negotiated, agreed and signed by the outgone PDP federal government was exploitative given the volume of revenues now being remitted by these same government agencies which had before now been undeclared or just allowed to float in the banking system. The tragedy was that the same PDP government kept borrowing its own money via Treasury Bills and Bonds from the same banking system, paying mind boggling interest charges and crowding out the private sector from the loan market.
The likes of Fayose need to tarry and think before flying off the handle. I sympathize with the good people of Ekiti. Hiding under the rabble – rousing to justify not implementing TSA in Ekiti State is nothing but a design to continue the status quo and lack of transparency in accounting for government revenue. The result is of course intractable looting. What needs to be negotiated with the service providers are reasonable fees in the public interest.
He who does not know and does not know that he does not know is a fool. Compound fool!!!