Minister of Finance Ryan Straughn is hopeful that the technical issues which resulted in some Government workers receiving their salaries late will be resolved by the next pay day.
He was alluding to challenges associated with the transition to the national instant payment system BiMPay, which went live on June 12.
Speaking in the House of Assembly yesterday during debate on the Protection of Wages Bill, 2026, he said the issue was being resolved among the Treasury Department, financial controllers at Government departments and financial institutions, namely banks and credit unions.
He explained that “about a month ago there was a test where one cent was deposited into everybody’s account to make sure that when we did the transition, that all the account information that would have been supplied by employees to their employer was correct.
“Cognisant that some of the institutions had made some changes with respect to their banking accounts, and because the technology is unforgiving, you had to make sure that there was a level of precision in relation to what information was already in the systems to do the testing,” Straughn said.
“When they did the testing . . . there were a number of financial institutions that needed to provide updated information to their clients, meaning employees, in order to ensure that what information is being used by the payroll systems of employers was consistent with allowing people to be paid.
“I saw my one cent and I was happy that I was going to be able to be paid seamlessly when we made the transition.”
He noted that it was “Treasury and the financial controllers of each Government department whose responsibility it is really to interface with employees to make sure that any information that is required to be updated is updated on time”.
“We’ve gone through a process to settle that, and that should be put to rest, so that by next pay day everything should be seamless and in place in relation to paying people on time,” Straughn said.
(SC)