El-Rufai closes government banks accounts, maintains only CBN

From Noah Ebije, Kaduna

Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai has closed all government accounts with commercial banks to maintain aTreasury Single Account (TSA) framework with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) effective September 1st , 2015.

This was contained in a statement signed by his media aide, Samuel Aruwan, and made available to newsmen yesterday. The statement said: “The Kaduna State Government on Thursday announced its decision to commence implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) framework by 1 September 2015.

“As part of the process of attaining this goal, all banks that maintain the accounts of the government have been put on notice to close them and remit the balances to the Central Bank of Nigeria which will host the state’s TSA.”

It added that the governor gave the directives at a meeting with officials of all the banks hosting the state government’s many revenue and expenditure accounts. The meeting was also attended by the Kaduna State Branch Controller of the CBN.

According to the statement, Malam El-Rufai explained that after the establishment of the TSA, the state government would open specified sub-accounts with the CBN and the commercial banks. The banks present assured the governor that within five working days of receiving the formal instructions from the state government, they would close the accounts and remit the balances to the TSA.

While thanking the banks for their continued support, Governor El-Rufai assured them that a future session will be organized to explain to the banks how the new TSA and the sub-accounts will work.