Egypt banishes government paper pay checks

Egypt is ending the practice of using paper pay checks across government agencies.
Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said that all state agencies, public institutions and private accounts would move away from paper payments from the end of last week.
It comes as the government rolls out an electronic payment system and working with a Treasury Single Account (TSA) that includes all state agencies.
Payments and regulation are only being carried out through this new system and approximately 61,000 accounts belonging to state agencies have been closed, Asharq Al-Awsat reported.
El-Garhy told reporters this week that the new electronic system will help society move away from dealing with paper cheques and toward using electronic systems instead. He added that this is one of the main aims of Egypt’s National Payments Council.
He added that staff at the Ministry of Finance and other public bodies have been working toward switching to the TSA system and the automation of managing public finance.
El-Garhy continued by saying that the introduction of the Government Fiscal Management Information System (GFMIS) is the second step toward creating an “electronic society” and that the two systems would be linked so that no electronic payment would be made, except through the government’s public financial information systems management system.
Egypt’s Deputy Finance Minister Mohamed Meait said: “This moment is a defining moment, because we are moving from one phase to another; for decades Egypt has dealt with paper cheques and is now replacing them with an electronic system.
“This is a very difficult challenge because the tools and mechanisms that were used have been changed and because of the change in work culture and environment.”