By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
Finance Minister, Mrs Zainab Ahmed said on Monday that one of the major challenges facing the full implementation of the Treasury Single Accout (TSA) was how to bring revenue generated by foreign missions in different currencies into the TSA.
Speaking in Abuja while receiving a delegation from The Gambian Ministry of Finance who were in the country to understudy Nigeria’s TSA, the minister said the federal government is considering another option of capturing all accruals by foreign missions to into a single account.
Ahmed said to address this challenge, the government “is looking at a different option to interface with TSA for foreign missions”.
She told the Gambian delegation that with the introduction of TSA, balances in the account are regularly reconciled.
She also urged The Gambians to take advantage of their two weeks study stay in Nigeria to visit some states in the country which have implemented a different variant of of TSA from the federal government.
Also speaking at the meeting, the Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr Ahmed Idris who was represented by the Director, Funds from the AGF’s Office, Mr. Mohammed K Usman said The Gambians have a lot to learn from Nigeria’s public finance management initiatives.
The Permanent Secretary in The Gambian Ministry of Finance and National Planning, Madam Adah Gaye who led the delegation, said they were in the country to learn from Nigeria how it has managed its TSA as part of the public finance reforms taking place in the Gambia especially the monitoring of funds.
As part of the two-week study tour, the The Gambian delegation which included that country’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Central Bank Governor, Account General, will also meet with Nigerian CBN officials, among others.