The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has expressed concern about the federal government’s decision to replace Remita, which has served as a Treasury Single Account for the Government, with another Platform.
Recall that Remita is developed by SystemSpecs, a corporate member of NCS, and an indigenous IT company with almost four decades experience which gained more traction at the introduction of Treasury Single Account (TSA) by the Federal Government, and has served the government effectively since then, and saved the federal government billons of Naira that would have been lost in different accounts prior to the TSA.
Recently, the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF) wrote to SystemSpecs, notifying the IT Company of the plans by the government to introduce a new payment platform known as the Treasury Management and Revenue Assurance System (TMRAS) that would take effect from March 2025, implying the replacement of Remita with TMRAS for managing federal government fund collection.
Responding to news men in Lagos on this replacement plan, Prof. Siraju Aliyu, the president of the Nigeria Computer Society, Association, stated that it is not clear why the government is introducing a new payment platform that will manage its funds collection across MDAs, when Remita is active and efficient.
He urged the government to:
- consider the effect on subsidiaries that have plugged into the TSA, using Remita payment platform
- consider the implications for the transfer of existing data and the training of new staff to implement the new payment software
- consider the wrong signal that the replacement will send to industry stakeholders, investors and upcoming indigenous companies.
According to the NCS President, the concept of TSA was to ensure transparency in managing government finances through a single aggregator, and there would be no need to introduce another platform when Remita performs that function efficiently.
“Nigeria’s TSA implementation powered by indigenous technology has been widely acknowledged as one of the most successful worldwide.
“It has been celebrated by four different successive governments in Nigeria who boldly sang its praises for delivering mega savings to government.
“Nigeria needs to celebrate its own. The TSA project is arguably the largest and most successful software driven IT project delivered 100 per cent on a 100 per cent indigenous technology by a Nigerian IT company,” Aliyu said.
The NCS President therefore calls for urgent dialogue on the matter so as not to dampen the efforts at growing indigenous software companies including Remita which has left its positive marks on the annals of IT and software development in the country.
Adding his voice to on-going, The Deputy President of the Association, Dr. Charles Onyeuku supported the need for reconsideration by the Government and the need for stakeholder dialogue to mitigate the effect this could have on local content policies.
Note that Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) is the umbrella and the premier body of all computing and information technology professionals, interest groups and stakeholders in Nigeria. The Headquarter is in Lagos.
