The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

The Government is seeking to ultimately eliminate all cheque payments in a bid to reduce fraud and end cumbersome manual processes, it was revealed yesterday.

Donna Delancy, deputy treasurer in the Treasury Department, told a Bahamas Institute of Chartered Accountants (BICA) seminar that a strategy was being developed for the elimination of cheque usage.

“The usage of cheques creates a problem for all and sundry because, for instance, we end up with a lot of outstanding cheques,” she said.

“We have a team looking at this, and they have a mandate that all of our vendors who are providing goods and services to the Government [must] give us their banking information because we are at the testing stage where we are cleaning up our vendors file. We are insisting that the vendors verify their information; that they give us their National Insurance numbers, their bank account number.”

Ms Delancy added: “All of that information will be put into our system because we intend, in short order, to allow payments to go directly from the Treasury’s  financial management system to a person’s bank account.

“That will eliminate a lot of the manual processing that we have to do in terms of researching cheques, queries etc.”

Ms Delancy said the Government was also aiming to eliminate the receipt of cheques.

“We are also looking at, on the flip side, to minimise the receipt of cheques and cash,” she added. “Cheques create another problem for the Government in terms of dishonoured cheques, and ensuring that the agencies that received the dishonoured cheque get the monies outstanding because that is money that should be in the Treasury. It impacts the Government’s cash flow.”

Ms Delancy said the Government is looking to facilitate the wiring of funds directly to its bank account.

“We are trying to streamline our processes and make the experience of doing business with Government more user friendly,” she added.