Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said he was amazed that there had not been enough outrage from the civil society in the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Vice President Prof Yemi Osinbajo stated this at a Situation Room Dialogue Session with civil society organizations held at Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.
“I’m stunned sometimes that civil society is practically quiet on issues of corruption,” Osinbajo said. He challenged the civil society to come and speak out against those who have tried to obstruct justice with the huge ill-gotten wealth they amassed through graft.
On some of the administration’s efforts, the Vice President stated that the Nigerian government has achieved over 90% compliance with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy that mandated ministries, departments and agencies to pay all government revenues into a single account domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Professor Osinbajo, who was answering a question on government’s proactive actions in the fight against corruption, said the government started with the TSA immediately it came into office and ensured that all government revenues could be sighted at once.
“We insisted that all government revenues go to the Central Bank and most MDAs complied almost immediately. Today, there is at least 90% compliance with the TSA,” Osinbajo said.
The Vice President said, TSA has made it possible for him and President Buhari to get information regularly on the state of government revenue.
According to him, prior to the implementation of the TSA policy, it was difficult to track government revenues as such funds were deposited in different banks, fixed at different rates, without information on them.
“There were MDAs that had up to 40 to 50 different accounts. As a matter of fact, when we started the TSA policy, we literarily had to fine banks that the CBN had to seal up the bank the banks find them and, in some cases, make allegations of fraud against them.”
Professor Osinbajo also set up the Efficiency Unit in the Ministry of Finance, “which ensures that government expenditure is efficient.” Government’s whistle-blowers policy has also gone a long way in checking corruption in the system and more still needed to be done.
On the submission of the 2018 budget to the national assembly, Osinbajo reaffirmed government’s commitment to ensuring that the 2018 Appropriation Bill is sent to the National Assembly in October.
“We are sending this one in October because we want to start January to December Budget cycle,” he said.
He pointed out that sending the budget in good time is just the beginning of the matter since it has to go through long processes.
