Adoption of Treasury Single Account (TSA) by State Governments of Nigeria: Benefits, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Nigeria’s Public Funds at all levels have been wrongly accounted-for by previous administrations. But to avert this threat coupled with the present country’s dwindling economy, Federal Government of Nigeria has implemented Treasury Single Account (TSA) to properly manage the scare financial resources but State Governments of Nigeria have been left-out. The aim of this study was to examine the benefits, challenges and prospects of adoption of Treasury Single Account (TSA) by State Governments of Nigeria. Descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted for the study. The population for the study consisted of 200 Professional Accountants in Akwa Ibom State. Taro Yamane’s statistical formula was used to select sample size of 133. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the 133 respondents/samples. The data obtained from questionnaire administration were analyzed using descriptive statistics and t-test statistics. The finding reveals that, TSA adoption and full implementation by the state governments will be of greatest benefit as showed in the weighted means scores of 4.20 and tcal of 24.87; there will be challenges in a short-run but the benefits at a long-run will definitely out-weight the challenges. It is the conclusion in this study that, State Governments of Nigeria should adopt and fully implement TSA for successful control and accountability of public funds so as to avoid bailout funds always from any source. State governments should enlighten all stakeholders on the benefits of TSA adoption as well as professional and regulatory bodies (ICAN, CBN, IMF, etc.) should help in designing, conceptualizing and road-mapping of TSA for the states.