The Accountant General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Jonah Otunla, on Tuesday refuted allegations that his office had influenced the current delay in complying with a high court directive to place the judiciary on the first line charge.

A Federal High Court presided over by Justice Adeniyi Ademola had on January 13, 2014 ordered that funds for the judiciary be on first line charge in order to strengthen the justice system in the country.

But on August 22, 2014, the state governments through the Chairman, Forum of Finance Commissioners, Mr. Timothy Odah, argued during the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting that they believed the court directive that the judiciary be put on the first line charge was unimplementable.

As a result of the tardiness to implement the judgment, the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) on Monday began an indefinite strike to press home its demands-and blamed the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation for the failure of the federal government to implement the judgment which stopped the executive from holding on to the funds meant for them.

However, in an interview with journalists in Abuja, shortly after opening a sensitisation workshop for MDAs on e-collection project, Otunla while absolving the federal government from the blame noted that the states had expressed reservations over the implementation of the judgment.

He said: “The first impression I should correct is that the Office of the Accountant General was never a party to that litigation: but without any prejudice to that and also reminding you that the federal government has been acting consistently with what it should do.

“We have always given agencies money as a first line charge without interference on how they managed the funds-at the last FAAC, the Office of the Accountant General made a nominal distribution for money to be remitted to the various state judiciary but the states’ said we should give them more time to reconcile their figures and they politely declined that we should not affect the deductions.”

“So at the Federal Ministry of Finance, we have tried our very best to ensure that the judgment is abided with, so the fault is not really ours, I think some states have really gone to court to challenge the judgment. So it’s not really on the part of the Office of the Accountant General- we can’t deduct the money of states if they say don’t.”

Meanwhile, the federal government has also directed departments, ministries and agencies of government to immediately close all Revenue Bank Account with commercial banks as the Treasury Single Account (TSA) and Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) fully take effect this month.

Otunla noted that the current fiscal challenge in the country had necessitated rapid moves to affect key reform by reducing costs and increasing revenue.

He said implementing the TSA and GIFMIS would free up more funds for budget performance adding that all MDAs would virtually be brought on board the system before the end of the first quarter.

He argued that in address the declining internally generated revenue (IGR), there must be a re-orientation on what agencies contribute to overall revenue rather than mere focusing on spending.

Director, Funds, Office of the Accountant Generation of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Dikwa, said a treasury circular on e-Collection would be issued next week, adding that MDAs had up till February 28, 2015 to transfer any outstanding balance in their Revenue Bank Account to the consolidated revenue fund (CRF) and immediately close them.

But there are fears that the commencement of the TSA and e-collection system could dispossess commercial banks of huge undisclosed amount funds.

Otunla said: “It is very difficult to predict how much money will leave the commercial banks, we are perfecting a system of collection, we are not perfecting a system of depriving commercial banks income. So we just want to make revenue collection a little bit more efficient but in the process, it might influence the inflow to the commercial banks but I cannot say with degree of certainty to what extent what would be the proportion of funds that would leave the commercial banks-and that’s why the central bank is playing a pivotal role.”

The implementation of e-Collections system is expected to among other things, facilitate the enthronement of a new regime of centralised, transparent and accountable Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) management system; improve funds availability for funding of government developmental projects and budget; plug loopholes in government revenue and collection management; remove delay in remittance of revenue and other collections by MDAs and bank as well as reduce need for government to borrow when idle funds exist in banks.