President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the opening of five COVID-19 Donor Accounts in five commercial banks in the country.
Director of Information, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Henshaw Ogubike, made this known in a statement sent to POLITICS NIGERIA on Tuesday.
Ogubike said the banks include Access Bank, First Bank Guarantee Trust Bank, UBA and Zenith Bank due to an arrangement with the federal government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA).
He said the arrangement covers all public funds allocated and dedicated to the fight against COVID-19, including the Fiscal Stimulus Package and all donations by corporate bodies and individuals.
It also covers donations under the Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) Fund domiciled at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
Ogubike said all the donations into the commercial bank accounts will be moved into the Federal Government’s Sub-Recurrent Account with the CBN.
He noted that sanction will be given for a failure to move all balance within 24-hours as it will be a violation of the Presidential policy on TSA.
“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. This 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,” the statement read.
