They paid Dyer in cash?

Alison alerts us that Gwynne Dyer did not rip off Canadians:

I was asked to go to Cuba in early 2007 by the Department of Foreign Affairs. . . . I didn't get paid for the work, but the Canadian embassy gave me $3,000 in cash to cover my travel costs. I never applied for a grant, and I never heard of PromArt until last week, but obviously some wily accountant at Foreign Affairs took the money for the Cuban project out of the wrong pocket. Stephen Harper's ministers just can't keep control of their departments.

Now, this struck me as an odd way for the embassy to act, actually. Governments simply do not pay people lump sums in cash -- the auditors don't like it at all. They issue cheques, for which someone has to write a cheque requisition, based on actual travel expense claims or invoices.
The only time I can recall that governments have given out cash to people is when they are pulling a fast one.