FG’s single account deadline: N2.6trn govt deposits in 20,000 bank accounts to be closed this week

As the Federal Government moves to enforce
Treasury Single Account (TSA) this week, there are
indications that over 20,000 different bank accounts
run by federal ministries and 600 government federal
agencies would be clamped.

Sunday Vanguard learnt the agencies' accounts are
holding about N2.6 trillion in 20 banks contrary to the
initial estimate of about N1.24 trillion reported in
Central Bank of Nigeria's (CBN) second quarter 2015
report. The report had indicated that less than 10 per
cent of banking industry's N13 trillion total deposits
are public sector funds.

But a top executive of one of the affected banks said,
at the weekend, that the CBN report was based on
the returns' renditions by banks which had
substantially under-reported public sector
proportion of their deposits in order to head-off the
impact of the apex bank's dual Cash Reserve
Requirement (CRR) policy which was then heavily
skewed against public sector deposits. He said that
public sector deposits in banks should be more than
double what was reported then.

He pointed out that if government decides to
implement the policy strictly, there will be serious
liquidity crisis as the top six banks in the public
sector deposits control about 70 per cent of total
money market liquidity.

However, he noted that the policy is presently
predominantly Federal Government account as most
states are not eager to toe that line, thereby giving
some of the banks a breathing space.



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