Questions around TSA and Remita’s Transaction Fee 

On Saturday 16th of March 2019, a post by a Twitter user caused a stir on social media. It was about the transaction fees charged by SystemSpecs, the owners of Remita, for payments made into the country’s Treasury Single Account (TSA).

Remita is a platform used nationwide by everyone paying into government-owned institutions, as such, the post became a subject of interest and it went viral, despite being laden with misinformation.

The user had wrongly accused Remita of charging as high as 30% on transactions into the TSA. The user also called the charges vague and arbitrary. Following the thread carefully, it became obvious that the dearth of information on how the TSA works and government’s failure to sensitize Nigerians, who are major stakeholders as payers, had caused the confusion.

In November 2018, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) issued a circular notifying Deposit Money Banks, SystemSpecs, and all other service providers facilitating e-collections into the TSA, of a chargeable fee which will now be borne by payers. Effective from that period, payments into TSA using other channels, apart from cards, attracts a flat rate of N150 plus VAT of N7.50k. However, those using cards are charged a flat rate of N150 plus 0.75% of the amount being paid, subject to a maximum of N1,200, per transaction.

Before this directive from CBN, the government had agreed to bear the service charge. However, after the first payment was made following full implementation of TSA in 2015, SystemSpecs’ was compelled to return legitimately earned money. Since then, the government accrued debt of about N10 billion and failed to clear this debt before the transaction cost was transferred to payers in November 2018. Findings revealed that for two years, the Remita platform was used by the government without payment.

SystemSpecs has saved Nigeria from near-collapse by plugging leakage in revenue collection. The company also survived several attacks and propaganda from conspirators who fetched from the leakages in Nigeria’s public accounting system.

In a statement issued to the media in 2018, the OAGF confirmed that “right from the inception of TSA, the Federal Government had been bearing the cost of transmission of funds and would not want to do so anymore. So, it is time for Nigerians to pay for the services that they receive, and government will take whatever is due to it without necessarily incurring cost’’.

On the matter at hand, while one will agree that information has been poorly disseminated by FG, SystemSpecs is regulated by the CBN and as such, its transaction charges are clearly stated. The charge is also shared among banks, SystemSpecs, CBN and other service providers.