Niger MDAS operated 400 accounts-Gov Bello

Ministries, departments and agencies in Niger State operated 400 bank accounts, making monitoring and control of their operations difficult, the state governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has said.
He made the revelation while playing host to participants of Course 24 of from the National Defence College, Abuja, who were on a study tour to the state.
He said multiplication of accounts by the state government always gave  room for corruption and make accountability impossible, adding that the  adoption of Treasury Single Account (TSA) by his administration was aimed at redressing the anomaly.
He said the adoption of TSA would  check corruption, block leakages, wastages and improve the revenue base of the state.
“We have adopted TSA so that we can have control and effectively monitor our account. I discovered that Niger State has 400 accounts. How do we monitor 400 accounts? MDAs open accounts arbitrarily and at will, just to keep one fund or the other. That is why we have adopted TSA. There are lots of leakages, wastages and corruption in government. We have to bring it to the barest minimum. Corruption affects our revenue base. Corruption is a serious and indeed the major problem affecting our IGR. It slows down our IGR drive,” he said.
He said the administration would review the state’s tax laws with a view to exploiting some untapped areas and services for revenue generation.
He said such review had  become necessary in view of the challenges being faced in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) generation despite the engagement of the services of tax consultants for that purpose.
According to him, government would fully exploit the potentials in its areas of comparative economic advantage such as agriculture, land, mining and tourism to improve its revenue.
The leader of the delegation and Deputy Commandant of the College, Major General Abubakar Adamu Tarfa said the visitors were on a three-day strategic study tour of the state.