THE Canberra Liberals are calling for an audit of the ACT government’s criticised ChooseCBR voucher scheme.

But ACT business minister Tara Cheyne has defended the digital voucher scheme, saying the government will conduct its own “independent and comprehensive” evaluation, and the findings will be publicly released.

“The government will analyse the spread of activity across businesses and consumers and the review will also evaluate its stimulus impact, to determine if something similar would be appropriate in the event of a further economic downturn,” Ms Cheyne said.

In a written statement, Ms Cheyne said the scheme, which has now closed, injected $5.1 million into the ACT economy.

Shadow minister for business Leanne Castley questioned the scheme’s “integrity” and will move a motion in the Legislative Assembly today (June 22) requesting the ACT Auditor-General conduct a “comprehensive” audit of the digital voucher scheme.

Technical difficulties brought the problem-plagued scheme offline less than two days after its launch on June 9.

Taking a week to fix, the website was brought back online on Friday (June 18) and was met with demand, with more than $1 million vouchers redeemed.

Ms Castley said there are “serious questions” about the “problem-riddled” scheme that must be answered.

“Just 24 hours after the scheme was resurrected last Friday, the funds dried up, with reports that vouchers were redeemed late into the night,” Ms Castley said.

“How did the government monitor the scheme to ensure vouchers were not misused and people were doing the right thing?”

Ms Castley said the audit should also examine which businesses benefited from the scheme and by how much.

She would also like to know the admin and marketing costs associated with the scheme as well as costs for fixing the bungled website.

The $2 million scheme provided ACT government subsidised discounts of up to 50 per cent for people to use at participating Canberra businesses.