EFFECTIVE September 1 all pension payments to Government pensioners will be made via direct deposit, a notice from the Accountant General’s Department (AGD) has advised.

“No pension payment will be done via cheque. Notification letters and bank account information forms have been dispatched to pensioners who currently receive payment by cheques. The banking information forms must be completed and returned to the Accountant General’s Department before September 17, 2018 to ensure that there is no disruption in pension payments,” the notice placed in Monday’s Jamaica Observer read.

Yesterday, Accountant General Carlene Murdock explained that several factors prompted the notice.

“We have been doing a re-verification process of our pensioners under the New Year Customer System. We checked to see if the pension we are paying is, in fact, the pensioner that is receiving the money. So we verified banking information of pensioners paid by a particular bank, and we found on a number of occasions that we have the pensioner who we pay name not being on the bank account at all,” Murdock said in a telephone interview with the Observer.

She said in those instances, payments were immediately suspended. Suspensions began earlier this month.

“So, in that regard, we sent out letters to pensioners affected, and we told them what we’ve discovered and we asked them to come in as quickly as they can to get this matter sorted. Once they come in with the proper verification documents we guarantee a payment within 48 hours,” she stated.

Murdock also said under the Central Treasury Management System (CTMS), which began in 2013, all bank accounts that were held by ministries, departments and agencies were closed, which means all payment obligations due are now being made by the AGD.

The main objective of the CTMS project is to allow the Government, through the AGD, to centralise its cash management function.

The core project activity therefore involves the upgrading of the existing Government accounting system used by more than 30 ministries, departments and agencies, and the coding and deployment of a Treasury Management Module to be used by AGD.

“So, effectively, we have discontinued making cheque payments to a large extent. We have been lobbying our customers to get on board. Since 2012, we had 17,000 customers being paid by cheque. That number is down to just a little over 2,000. So for the last five years we have been doing this.

“If we were to continue payments by cheque,it means that we would be going against our own system of central treasury management. We also have done this because it is a better source of payment to the pensioners,” Murdock said, adding that pensioners are at risk when being paid by cheque.

As a result, Murdock said the AGD has partnered with several banks for ease of access to pensioners opening accounts.

“It reduces the possibility of fraud from loss or misdirected cheque. The pensioner is always aware of when his or her payment is made to their account. So therefore the uncertainties that are associated with the timing of payments are eliminated,” Murdock said.

— Kimone Francis