With effect from April 2, 2018, third parties such as contractors, consultants and suppliers who transact business with state institutions operating under the Ghana Integrated Financial Management System (GIFMIS) will no longer be paid manually with cheques.
Subsequently, the government has taken a decision to ensure that all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) which generate funds internally pay third parties through electronic fund transfers (EFT) which will enable them to receive payments electronically into the accounts of the owed entities.
The Finance Minister, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, announced this in an address read on his behalf at a sensitisation seminar for heads of account and treasury officers of MDAs of IGF institutions.
He said to ensure the smooth implementation of the policy, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and GIFMIS, which is under the Ministry of Finance, had embarked on a hands-on training to keep them abreast of the EFT system.
IGF
Meanwhile, he said, all stakeholders, and in particular those institutions that had IGF, would be expected to collect system cheque books from the CAGD for internal use before the rollout of the policy.
The minister explained that the EFT was the electronic exchange and transfer of money either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions through computer-based systems without manual or human intervention.
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