Billions of naira has been lost by the government as a result of the failure of several banks that shut operations in the country.

The Federal Government disclosed Thursday that it lost over N70 billion to failed banks.

The Accountant-General of the Federation, Alhaji Ahmed Idris, who made the disclosure yesterday in Abuja said over N70 billion of funds belonging to the government had been lost to banks.

Idris spoke at a presentation on the ‘Challenges of the implementation of the Treasury Single Account in the Nigerian Public Service during a forum organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.’

He, however, did not provide the identity of the failed banks said the TSA has been used by the government to unify all its accounts by ensuring that all monies belonging to the federal government are kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The initiative which took off fully in September 2015, he said, had been complied with by over 900 agencies of government with over 17,000 bank accounts closed while huge sums of money had been moved from banks to the CBN.

Idris who was represented at the event by Deputy Director/Coordinator TSA/e-Collection, Funds Department Mr. Sylva Okolieaboh, said the TSA policy had been able to assist the government to address a lot of impediment affecting the efficiency of public finance.

“The cardinal objective of TSA is to facilitate the implementation of federal government cash management policy.

“TSA is intended to address multiple bank accounts of over 17,000, countless dormant accounts with huge balances, inability to determine consolidated cash position of government, borrowing and incurring charges when there are idle balances in Ministries, Departments and Agencies account, delayed remittance of revenue and collections. Over N70bn of FG funds lost to failed banks

The AGF told participants at the event that the government is currently enjoying a lot of benefits from the implementation of the TSA policy.