Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun, Tuesday, said the revenue of the state revved up from about N730 million to N6 billion following the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) since 2011.
This is even as the Institute of Chattered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) declared their support for President Muhammadu Buhari’s anti-graft war, stating that it had set up a N50 million whistle blower’s fund to assist its members.
President Buhari had last month ordered all Federal Government Ministry, Department or Agency to start paying into a Treasury Single Account (TSA) for all government revenues, incomes and other receipts.
However, some states had started implementing the policy for sometime now. Kaduna State recently commenced implementation of the TSA.
“I am happy to report that Kaduna did and we did that in August, 2011 in Ogun State. That was the first thing I did when I came into office, and we moved from about N730 million to over N6 billion under these four years and am happy that people are now seeing the importance of doing things the way it should be in line with world best practice,” Amosun said
For the development of any nation, accountants should be at the forefront, the governor said in a chat with journalists at the Presidential Villa after a courtesy visit of the ICAN to commemorate their 50th anniversary.
Declaring the support of the body towards the president’s anti-graft war, Amosun said the president at the closed-door meeting urged the body to advise him on how to get it right.
“Even if we have to get it right socially and economically, it is the accountants that have to play a major role and we are doing that, we are coming up with new innovations that is world best practice,” he said.
If the country must fight corruption, you will need accountants to collaborate with government in planning, budgeting and management, Amosun said.
In a chat with journalists after meeting with the president to commemorate the institute’s 50th anniversary, Samuel Deru, ICAN president, said the fund was set up to support its members to carry out their duties in a transparent and unbiased manner.
“ICAN is the voice of business and accountability is our business. We must be accountable and transparent in what we do. We also have a whistle blowing fund, so that anybody who misbehaves and they want to penalise our members we have N50 million we have set outside to fight such course so that our people can work and be transparent and unbiased,” he said.
He however noted that out of the 40,000 chartered accountants in the country, there still existed bad eggs.
