TSA: Gombe recovers N1.48bn from 256 secret accounts

Gombe State Governor, Muhammad Inuwa Yahaya on Thursday disclosed that his administration has discovered N1.48 billion and about 2, 292 accounts linked to former Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo’s administration.

Yahaya stated this at a one-day workshop on Treasury Single Account (TSA) on cash management strategy for chief accounting and paying officers and heads of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and state-owned higher institutions.

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The governor said the sum of N1.48 billion was discovered from 860 accounts that were hitherto dormant or undisclosed, while 586 dormant accounts were closed after generating their annual account statements for proper reconciliation and documentation.

He added that the exercise on the implementation and enforcement of the TSA in the state also captured additional 265 hidden accounts through the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System (NIBSS).

“It is worthy of note that on our coming to office in May 2019, we met the state finances in a delicate situation, characterized by high debt burden, wastefulness and lack of accountability,” he said.

However, a former Commissioner for Youth Affairs during Dankwambo’s administration, Malam Farouk Yarma, described the governor’s remarks as blame games.

He said since coming to power, his administration had failed to fulfill its campaign promises.

According to him, the TSA itself was initiated in the state during the Dankwambo’s administration between 2015 and 2017, to check leakages and improve transparency.

He said during their administration, it was started with the Internally Generated Revenue of the state, where all the money generated by the state’s Internal Revenue Service was being domiciled in a Government Consolidated Revenue Account.

“Also most of the accounts they were talking about dated back to former Governor Abubakar Hashidu and Danjuma Goje’s administrations. They were being closed gradually when our tenure ended and government is a continuum.

“As they admitted the money was found in the various accounts, this is to show you that it wasn’t embezzled as they want to make public to believe through their cheap propaganda,” he said.