The Department of Defence will no longer make payments using cheques.
All payments for supply of goods and services, as well as allowances, will be made directly to nominated bank accounts through Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT).
As part of the Government’s digitalization reform, the use of cheques as a method of payment is being withdrawn, and all government agencies are required to transition to EFT by the end of the year
On Friday 30th October 2026, the Department of Defence completed its onboarding with the launch at Murray Barracks, becoming the 15th National Government organisation to go on EFT.
As part of the launch, senior staff of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force and Department of Defence were introduced to the system by officers from the Department of Finance, and three test payments were made using EFT.
Acting Deputy Secretary for the Department of Defence Ms Doreen Joel said as of Friday 30th October 2026, the printing of cheques had ceased, and EFT was now in full operation.
“On behalf of Hari John Akipe, Secretary of Defence, I thank the Department of Finance Secretary Mr Samuel Penias and his staff who worked tirelessly to help us get onboard, and we acknowledge the tremendous efforts by Acting First Assistant Secretary Financial Control Division Ms Marlene Philip and her EFT Technical Team to get us on the module before the deadline,” Ms Joel said.
“This system is efficient and is a great boost for our operations. The test payments we did took less than 20 minutes to be credited to the accounts. I know our finance team here have been introduced to the system and will be very effective in operating EFT.”
