ISLAMABAD: The finance division has issued procedure for government offices to close their accounts with commercial banks and transfer of all available funds to treasury single account (TSA).
According to official documents made available on Sunday, the finance division said that as per the Cash Management and TSA Rules 2020, the government offices are neither allowed to undertake any cash operation outside the TSA nor obliged to open, operate or maintain a bank account in any commercial bank.
They can only operate through the principal government account i.e Central Account No.1 (Non Food) maintained with State Bank of Pakistan for deposit and withdrawal of all public moneys.
However, in contravention of the constitutional and legal provisions as mentioned in clause-1 above and the provisions of Cash Management and ‘NA Rules 2020, the Government Offices are maintaining a large number of commercial bank accounts purportedly to operate various funds, deposits, reserve funds etc, which are otherwise legally required to be maintained in the Public Account/Central Account No.1 (Non food).
Resultantly, considerable amount of public money has been parked in the commercial bank accounts, hence held outside the TSA system.
Therefore, under the Cash Management and TSA Rules 2020, they have been required to close all the bank accounts and transfer the public money held outside the TSA system, to the Central Account No.1 (Non food).
The prime objective of devising this procedure is to facilitate the Government Offices in closure of the commercial bank accounts, transfer of all the available balances to the Public Account/Central Account No.1 (Non food) and undertake further public account transactions through the Government Central Account No.1 (Non food).
It has therefore been found expedient to prescribe a dedicated and hassle free procedure for withdrawal of funds from the Public Account through non-lapsable special assignment account, as the existing Assail assignment account procedure is for withdrawal of funds from the Federal Consolidated Fund only.
Moreover, in order to ensure uniformity in fiscal operations, the Personal Ledger Accounts (PLAs), Special Drawing Accounts (SDAs) and Revolving Fund Accounts (Local Currency) shall be discontinued forthwith as already approved by the Finance Division.
