COVID 19 Funds: Presidency Bows to Senate

By Tosin Olatokunbo

The federal government has decided to harmonise funds allocated for the containment of COVD 19, barely two days after the Senate launched a probe into the management of funds allocated to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, NCDC.

The President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has also buckled under Senate’s demand that it must approved of funds allocated for the health emergency, analysts say.

The upper chamber had instituted a probe following strindent complaints that private and public funds allocated to the agency could be mismanaged.

The coalition of private sector ahsint COVID 19 has donated at least N27 billion to the cause in less than two months.

Besides, a whopping N40 billion is believed to have been spent in the last two months by the Presidential Task Force, PTF on COVID 19, headed by the Seretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha  and CDC to manage the  global emergency.

The decision, to harmonise such largeThe News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Nigeria Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID), as of April 23, realised about N27,160 billion. funds, experts says was has become necessary to stem further abuse by the managers.

In line with this, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the opening of five COVID-19 Donor Accounts which form part of the existing Treasury Single Account (TSA) arrangement in five commercial banks.

This was made known in Abuja by Hennshaw Ogubike, Director Information and Press, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation.
Ogubike disclosed that the approved banks were Zenith Bank, Access Bank, Guarantee Trust Bank, UBA and First Bank.
All donations are to be forwarded to this accounts and harmonised in an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, the federal government said.

He said the federal government took the action in response to agitation that resources allocated to COVID 19 must be managed prudently..

The statement said “In accordance with citizens expectations, government is committed to managing these funds with the highest sense of transparency and integrity.

This framework is therefore designed to articulate the measures put in place by government for the transparent and accountable management of COVID-19 Donor Funds as an expression of its commitment towards bridging the trust gap.

The TSA Sub Account in commercial banks are to be used for the purposes of receiving COVID-19 donations only. On no account shall any other fund of Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA) be deposited into the accounts or any other account in commercial banks.

All other government accounts are to be maintained at the CBN in line with the Presidential directive on TSA, the TSA Guidelines and related extant Circulars.

And all accounts with commercial banks are to be linked with the TSA at CBN to provide a single consolidated view of aggregate government cash balances.”

No room for mismanagement of public funds.

The decision “will provide a single window for real time access to details of receipts and payments across all commercial bank accounts.

In the absence of a ready tool to accomplish this requirement, the current CBN Payment gateway may be deployed.”

He stated that all collections into the commercial bank accounts were to be swept into Federal Government’s Sub-Recurrent Account with the CBN and failure to sweep all balances within 24 hours should be deemed a violation of the Presidential directive on TSA and would attract sanctions.

Henceforth, all COVID 19 funds will be appropriated by the National Assembly, he said.