Effective today, November 1, the Federal Government will begin a new service charge through the Treasury Single Account (TSA) on all payments to its ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
The charges would be borne by the payer.

Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Ahmed Idris, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja.

The OAGF had on Tuesday in Abuja held a One-Day Stakeholders Sensitisation Exercise on TSA e-Collection Charges, where discussion on further development and enhancement of the scheme was held.

Under the new model, all funds collection into the TSA would require payers to bear the transaction cost, which according to a source from the Office of the AGF told The Guardian would likely be one per cent.

The novel tariff regime would, therefore, replace the previous one in which the Federal Government bore the charges on all transactions to service providers on behalf of the payers.

In the previous tariff regime, the Federal Government owed the technology service providers and the participating deposit money banks up to two years in service charges.

In 2012, the pilot TSA scheme commenced using a unified structure of accounting for 217 MDAs to enhance accountability and transparency in management of public funds.

In August 2015, the initiative was fully implemented, as it covered over 1000 MDAs after a presidential directive.

At commencement, all players, including commercial banks, SystemSpecs and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) agreed on the payment of one per cent fee on funds collected.