Abel moves to fix dishonoured cheques

FINANCE Minister Charles Abel, pictured has called on all Members of Parliament to present all government cheques immediately to avoid being dishonoured.
Abel was responding to questions by Gulf Governor Chris Haiveta on a cheque worth K3 million for infrastructure development in his province which was dishonoured by the bank.
“It is never the intention to see government cheques dishonoured and it is embarrassing when that happens,” Abel said.
“One would expect that when a cheque is produced through the government system it should be as good as gold and that’s how the ideal system should work.
“Unfortunately we’ve had circumstances where over the last couple of years where these incidences have occurred,” he said.
Abel had presented the K3m cheque to Haiveta when he visited the province.
“I thank you for taking me down to our province to have a look at Kerema town and some of the hinterland areas and the road leading into Gulf,” he told Haiveta.
“I share our good governor’s concerns about the development issues of Gulf and it continues to struggle.
“We are pleased that a new Government through our new Prime Minister and Petroleum Minister has gone through the process to achieve a few more wins on the Papua LNG project and it will continue to achieve the aspirations of the governor.”
Abel said the Finance department was resolving the situation of the dishonoured cheque and he assured Haiveta that Gulf would receive the money.
He said there was a process in place to ensure that it did not happen again.
“It goes through a budget management committee process with the public servants after being advised by debt management committee which comprises all relevant departments.
“They are working on it to ensure that cheques are issued against actual cash in bank.
“We are working on this and I apologise to the governor.”