Transparency, Probity and Accountability: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Treasury Single Account (TSA) in Nigerian Public Sector

Abstract

This study focuses on the effectiveness of Treasury Single Account (TSA) for promoting transparency, integrity, and responsibility among public sectors in Nigeria. A TSA is an important tool for managing government activities. It is very useful for the optimal utilization of government cash resources. Relying on secondary data, we concluded that the adoption of TSA by the federal government is a good measure aimed at plugging loopholes in the Nigerian Financial System as against the former fragmented government banking arrangements where separate cash transactions by each MDA were allowed for (supposed) smooth control and reporting purposes. However, this resulted to numerous corrupt practices such as lack of transparency and accountability, Revenue leakages, incrementalism and other sharp practices that were overarching in the Country’s public accounting system. The paper finally discusses the prospects of the TSA system and its challenges and concludes that the system requires political will, honesty and determination so as to overcome the various challenges identified in the paper in order to achieve the expected benefits of the system. Therefore, our recommendations centres on the urgent need for political will as well as strict compliance with the directive on TSA by the relevant government organisations.