Contractors and suppliers working on government businesses will, from now, receive their payments through electronic transfer.
The payments, which will be done under the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS), is part of reforms started in 2010 to ensure that service providers receive their money on time.
The acting Controller and Accountant-General, Ms Grace Adzroe, made that known when she met with contractors and suppliers in Accra to explain the GIFMIS project to them.
The GIFMIS project, she said, was replacing the manual with an electronic system of processing government business at the ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) and the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs).
That, she said, was to ensure efficiency, transparency and accountability in public financial management.
Ms Adzroe said the government embarked on several public financial management (PFM) reforms over the years to address challenges in managing public funds and the GIFMIS was part of them.
According to her, under GIFMIS, payment to contractors and suppliers would be made directly using the SWIFT system at the Bank of Ghana to their bank accounts through the electronic transfer system (EFT), saying contractors and other service providers would no longer be issued with cheques.
With the GIFMIS system, contractors and suppliers, she added, would be expected to receive purchase orders from MDAs and MMDAs before making supplies, adding, “Anything short of that can bring some difficulties with payments, since the system will not be able to generate funds for the payments.”
She said a requirement for the payment of money due contractors and suppliers would be that they obtain and make available their tax identification numbers (TINs) before the GIFMIS system would support the processing of payments to them.
“Under GIFMIS, the payment processes will be efficient and swift, without any serious delay, which has been the bane of most suppliers to MDAs and MMDAs,” she said.
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