President Bola Tinubu has approved the removal of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) from the Treasury Single Account (TSA).

The FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, disclosed this while briefing journalists in Abuja on Friday, October, 13.

Wike said the development would take the nation’s capital to where it was supposed to be.

The minister lamented that FCT was littered with projects, adding that the projects were being awarded without the requisite financial backing.

Wike stated that part of the problem was the inclusion of FCTA into the TSA, however, describing it as a tool that unifies all government accounts in the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for effective management of finances and cash position.

This, according to him, is not necessary for FCTA because it is not a revenue-collecting agency for the federal government.

He said: “Take for example, so many projects were awarded in 2002, 2007, and 2010, and up to now they have not been completed.

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“You can imagine a project that was awarded in 2010, this is 21 years. Imagine what they will cost now.”

The minister added that the utilisation of Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was another problem, decrying that the IGR of the FCTA was spending funds as they came.

This, he said, could not tangibly be of any benefit to the administration.

Wike added: “So, I went to Tinubu and said, Mr President, if you want FCT to carry out development projects and infrastructure among others, then they must come out from TSA.

“What is the essence of TSA; blocking of leakages and the rest. FCTA is not a revenue collection agency for the federal government; so what are you blocking?

“If I need money for projects, I cannot go to the CBN and say give us money; CBN will not give us money.

“I can go to a commercial bank but how do we pay? I say the best bet is that we must pull out.”

The minister further explained that if FCTA was out of TSA, it could approach a commercial bank, collect loan, and tie it to its IGR.

He said: “Assuming I want to collect N400 billion from the bank, I can say our IGR is about N20 billion a month; can you take N10 billion every month and in a year, we have paid N120 billion.

“That is the only way we can survive it and Mr President graciously agreed with us and approved that we should pull out from the treasury single account.”

Wike assured the residents of Abuja that with this development, a myriad of projects would spring up from next year in FCT.

He thanked Tinubu for his approval, adding: “With this development, insecurity in the FCT will soon be a thing of the past.”

The Star