By Martin Ekpeke
In what appears like an outsourced job, Proshare has given some clarifications on the purported 20 percent increased charges on Nigerians under the federal government’s initiated Treasury Single Account.
A Twitter user, Solopenja had tweeted that Nigerians are charged by
“Who else has noticed that Remita charges Nigerians as high as 20% service charge for collecting revenue for the Federal Government? They used to charge FG just 1%, but now they burden Nigerians more? What is happening? Are Nigerians being ripped off by Systemspec?,” he tweeted via @solomonapenja.
The tweet set the social media platform on fire with many Nigerians reacting by commenting and retweeting.
But reacting, Proshare, the acclaimed Nigeria’s Premier Financial, Business and Economic Information Hub in a piece titled ‘Commentary On The Service Charge For Payers Under TSA e-Collection Scheme,’ clarifies thatSystemspecs did not increase the charges. Rather, the federal government in acircular reference No. BKS/CSO/CON/DIR/04/043 passed/pushed the cost of collections to payers when it fixed the fees and announced same in November 2018.
It said it was the federal government that transferred the cost of the ‘FGN TSA e-collections’ to users (nay citizens) without any prior engagement or public announcement.
Proshare also clarified that the new charge is a uniform flat fee of N150 + VAT irrespective of the amount being paid to the Government, through any bank in Nigeria. Meaning, the person paying N10m and one paying N5K will pay the same fee of N150 flat + VAT; in the same way N65 flat applies irrespective of the amount withdrawn from an ATM
“The TSA fee is a Flat fee structure and not based on a percentage contrary to the current narrative and focus on Remita/Systemspecs as the CBN Circular makes clear,” it added; arguing that the TSA fee in effect appears far cheaper than regular ATM withdrawal fee, which is N65 for every N20, 000 withdrawn.
The Treasury Single Account (TSA) is a financial policy in use in several countries all over the world. In Nigeria, It was proposed in 2012 under Goodluck Jonathan Administration and is being fully implemented by the Buhari Administration to consolidate all inflows from all agencies of government into a single account at the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Remita, an electronic payment platform and owned by Systemspecs is the preferred payment gateway for the facilitation of the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA). Industry watchers and anaylysts believe is the largest and most impactful in all of Africa.