Treasury Single Acct Policy is Anti-employment, Anti-south, HURIWA Alleges

Treasury Single Acct Policy is Anti-employment, Anti-south,  HURIWA Alleges

A pro-democracy and non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), today alleged that behind the facade of the need to instill transparency and accountability as claimed by President Muhammadu Buhari enforcing the treasury single account (TSA) policy for all federal agencies is aimed at crippling the banking sector.

The group alleged that the policy by the federal government is because of perceived dominance of investors from southern part of Nigeria in the ownership hierarchy of commercial banks.

Also, HURIWA cautioned against hasty implementation of the TSA directive by federal agencies “because of the inevitable mass retrenchment of bank workers that would follow the pull out of huge public funded deposits in most of the commercial banks for onward transfer to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).  

HURIWA said unemployment would soon sweep across the banking sector  as every family would be affected, thereby rubbishing the real evil intentions which actually guided the TSA policy in the first instance.

"This policy is like throwing a stone in a market place without knowing whetherit will actually harm ones Mother, " it added.

The group has accused the Arewa Consultative Forum and an erstwhile CBN chief, now a traditional ruler in a prominent northern Emirate for plotting to undermine the economy by successfully convincing President Buhari to flow along with their plot by introducing single accounts for all federal agencies to be domiciled in the CBN.

“The subterranean tendencies are to precipitate the collapse of the banks and weakening the alleged lopsided ownership of the banking institutions by persons perceived to be southerners,” it added.

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, said it had it on good authority that the current irrational and impulsive policy of single account formed a fulcrum of the economic blueprints allegedly handed over to the president upon assumption of office by “some regional hawks from the northern Nigerian based Arewa Consultative Forum who now has its erstwhile General Secretary, Colonel Hamid Ali  (rtd), as the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service.” 

Fearing that this single account policy has started yielding it's downsides by way of mass retrenchment of bankers by commercial banks the rights group has called for a review of this policy to forestall the eventual compounding of the dire economic hardship afflicting many Nigerian households.

HURIWA said: “Any government policy that churns out youth unemployment must be discarded because it is inherently unconstitutional and illegal for government to create joblessness rather than gainful jobs.

 "The president must be cautioned to stop the implementation of a hasty policy designed only for regional vendetta and targeted at economically weakening some investors only because they come from the southern segments of Nigeria and by so doing exposing the Nigerian economy to large scale unemployment and job cuts which will inevitably affect every home.

Zenith Bank, according to HURIWA, has allegedly downsized it's staff strength  “even as other commercial banks are about now bringing out their anti employment policies because of the adverse effects of the withdrawal of huge funds by government agencies and the closing of these accounts for subsequent transfer to CBN. 

"This policy will further expand the frontiers of social crimes and vices of youth prostitution and a violent criminal activity since the idle mind is the devil's workshop.

“The federal government must therefore review this directive because pulling out government funds from banks will backfire because interest rates for borrowings will skyrocket since there will be scarcity of funds from which to lend to small, medium scale and large scale entrepreneurs in Nigeria and this would stifle the manufacturing and job sectors.”

“If government is desirous of tightening its financial dealings then it should effectively strengthen the office of auditors in the federation so these offices engage globally acclaimed forensic auditors that can have greater autonomy to more independently monitor financial transactions of government agencies.  TSA is a vote-of –no-confidence on auditors because why waste resources to maintain the office of auditor general of the federation who isn't competent and professionally independent minded and competent to track financial dealings by government at all levels?"