Nigeria has collected more than 2.7 trillion naira ($13.57 billion) in a bank account set up to gather together all state receipts under a drive to improve fiscal transparency, the accountant-general said on Thursday.
President Muhammadu Buhari, elected a year ago on an anti-corruption ticket and who has said he believes officials have stolen around $150 billion from the public purse in the past decade, ordered all state accounts to be merged into one last August.
Every ministry and state body now pays its revenues into the account, held at the central bank and known as the Treasury Single Account (TSA). Previously, ministries and agencies operated more than 10,000 bank accounts with commercial lenders, officials said.
Nigeria, Africa's top oil producer, is going through its worst economic crisis in years due to the fall in crude prices. Oil receipts provide about 70 percent of state income.
"TSA has helped government to have a firm and full control of its resources, blocking leakages, helping it to reduce the cost of borrowing and to monitor spending," Accountant-General Ahmed Idris said in a statement issued by his office.
The statement did not outline the period over which the 2.7 trillion naira was collected, and the accountant-general's spokesman could not be reached to clarify this.
In February, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said the account contained 2.2 trillion naira, and the figures compare with a record 6.06 trillion naira budget planned by Buhari for the year to March 2017 to stimulate the economy.
The budget also projects a deficit of 2.2 trillion naira, over which authorities in Africa's biggest economy have held exploratory funding talks with the World Bank, African Development Bank and China Exim Bank.
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