President Muhammadu has revealed that under the immediate past administration, the NNPC operated as much as 45 bank accounts while the Ministry of Defence had 70 different accounts.
Mr president said it was for this reason his government introduced the Treasury Single Account (TSA).
Responding to questions from a team of media executives, the president said, “The (economic) situation now is aggravated by the downturn in the petroleum industry. It is now $39 per barrel and we have debt servicing of about N1.5 trillion and we have commitments on the ground.
“We had to reorganise NNPC. We had to introduce the TSA. There were 45 accounts in the NNPC alone. Ministry of Defence had about 70 accounts. We have got about N1.5 trillion through the TSA.
“The oil downturn is very unfortunate for this government. Check previous records. Over 90 per cent (of the budget) was for recurrent expenditure. No country can develop without capital projects. We were in very bad shape”.
Buhari further said government parastatals would be realigned in view of the lesser number of ministries the country now has.
“The process of government agencies earning monies and spending them and giving government change will have to stop. All government monies have to be paid to the Federation Account and a budget submitted for their operations,” he added.
