Nigeria’s Accountant-General, Ibrahim Dankwambo, has directed all commercial banks in the country not to honour any cheque drawn by Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), effective 1 Jan. 2009. “In order to implement the presidential directive on e-payment, my office immediately commenced to work out modalities for easy implementation in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), MDAs and commercial banks…The concept of e-payment which is a subset of e-Governance is not new in Nigeria because it is similar to the use of ATM cards, smart cards and others, which are other versions of e-payment,” he said at a forum on the new payment system in the capital city of Abuja on Wednesday. The decision to embrace a cashless system is part of measures to check corruption and enhance accountability and transparency in governance.
