Remita; A Disadvantage to Nigeria Students -By Elijah Akoji

Remita which is one of this regimes policy introduced to help in tracking government funds and payment made into government confers, and also help in regulating the single Treasury mandate is nothing but a disadvantage to an average Nigerian student.

Remita is a little over a year old as the payment gateway adopted by the Federal Government for its Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy, but is already living up to McKinsey’s projections. So far, it has made a huge impact on public finance in Nigeria by helping the government recover N4.3 trillion of its cash assets lying idle in Deposit Money Banks (DMBs).

However, the e-fees payment method call remita is full of twists and turns, and this has not been on the advantage side of students in Nigeria. Schools since this policy was adopted as also gone further to mandate all payment to be made through the same remita procedures a good development but improperly used. The remita system has over time lead to increase in charges and payment which, banks today today now chartrat extra fee for the remita payment, of which it is suppose to be a free process as there is an incentive which is been charged by the bank to the federal government.
In my interview with some student of Bayero University Kano, most of them has expressed their displeasure over the remita process, some complained that an ID card charges for replacement usually used to be N500 and now due to the remita system, iy has become N700 as the banks now charge 200 extra charges call remita charge.

Also some of the new student also expressed their dissatisfaction over the way the remita process cost them extra money and stress, so said they paid extra money to cafe owners ranging from N300 to N500, this lead to discomfort as some of the student use from their own feeding money to pay some of this remita charges and extra expenses the system as created in the educational system.
One can not help but raise an alarm as this only benefit the government and in their usual way they don’t care to do a follow check to see how this system operate, if its meeting the satisfaction of people or not.

Good development is measured by the kind of technology a country uses, but before this can be used, a proper background check is advisable to help in a better manner. Most people if asked to are so unsatisfied with the remita ideology introduced by the government, even if this can’t change, i so believe it can be better improved as some payment will be well checked and remita charges will be discouraged by some of this commercial banks as well micro finance banks.

Student tend to leave base on a well planned and detail financial life, so any attempt to cause them more expenses discomfort them and the end result is psychological disorder as many will be thinking on how to raise money to meet their next need.
Remita has in many improved the government collection of funds and payment of taxes, this function’s perfectly well when it comes to organization and business, but bringing the same laws that guide a business in such usage of policy into an institution, it may cause some damage and harm as well some level of discomfort which may not be to the advantage of the student or institution.
As a country where students are not in anyway assisted by the government, financial burden should not be added as some student engage in hard labour to raise money to assist themselves.

Instead of creating more expenses for them, more assistance should be given so as to create a motivating platform of intellectual growth and entrepreneurial skills where they can invest their little money saved into productivity.

God Bless Nigeria.