AFTER waiting for nearly 30 minutes on the queue at the banking hall Nnajiofor Cynthia, a student of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka anxious to make her deposit that morning, was notified that a sum of N300 bank charges would be required to finalise her school fees deposit of N45,600 into the Treasury Single Account, TSA.

In December, 2011 the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, signed a contract to hire Systemspecs- a local financial/tech company that designed Remita, an online platform. The firm is expected to facilitate e–payments on government financial services to a single account overseen by the apex bank in line with chapter five, Section 80 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution.

The decision to hire the company owned by John Obaro was borne out of fact that the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS) – a subsidiary of the CBN, at the time lacked the capacity to carry out the functions for which Systemspecs was being hired for.

By August 2015- September 2016, Remita reported remittance of over three trillion Nairas into the TSA (N3, 651,360,698,359.03) for the Federal Government.

However, public outcry and criticism in October 2015 of fraudulent extortion and exorbitant charges by the payment interface led to a pause on payment charges into government accounts.

Abayomi Oniku, Divisional Head, Public Sector Systemspecs who spoke to The ICIR said the gains made from the use of the interface as charges billed payers was shared amongst shareholders–Systemspecs Remita, CBN, Deposit Money Banks at 50 per cent, 10 per cent, and 40 per cent respectively.

Therefore, it wasn’t kept by the fintech company alone – An assertion to which John Obaro, Chief Executive Officer, and CEO, Systemspecs, had earlier attested.

As the controversy thickened, the CBN on November 1 2018, released a directive for the enforcement of a flat rate charged payers for every deposit—both cash and electronic transaction made into the TSA’s.

“All payers using other channels apart from Cards (Bank Transfers, Mobile Payments, Bank teller points, USSD and all other channels) shall pay the sum of N150.00 (One Hundred and Fifty Naira only), per transaction,” a section of the letter read.

It also stipulated that “All payers using cards are to be charged N150.00 (One Hundred and Fifty Naira only) plus 0.75 per cent of the amount being paid, subject to a maximum of N1,200.00 (One Thousand Two Hundred Naira Only).”

This meant that depositors would have to pay additional charges on every transaction for using the interface–birthing a ‘non-seamless’ deposit transactions into the TSA as the federal government reneged on its initial responsibility to bear the cost of service on behalf of the revenue payers.

However, the introduction of the directive by the CBN may have come a little too late.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/the-four-pronged-profiteers-how-cbn-three-others-milked-nigerians-through-remita-extra-bank-charges/