5.1 Introduction

The following guidelines are intended to ensure that cash/cash equivalents are disbursed only upon proper authorisation, for valid business purposes, and that all expenditures are properly recorded and accounted for.

The term ‘cash/cash equivalent’ encompasses physical cash as well as cheques and other cash-equivalent documents such as pay orders. This distinction is made because, at many emergency operations, there may not be banking facilities in operation and only cash payments are acceptable. Where banking facilities are available and operational, the use of cash to conduct daily operations must be discouraged and kept to a minimum.