Bawumia Launches E-Travel Card For Public Officials

The Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has announced the launch of an e-Travel Card for all public officials in the country.

Dr Bawumiah explained in a Facebook post that amongst the numerous benefits of this new card, it would also regulate the overspending by public officials while their budgetary allocations for travels can also be monitored and controlled better.

“Since Independence, public officials are provided cash for their imprest when they travel. This system has many associated problems including the risks of carrying cash, fraud in the disbursement of imprest, the increasing use of cashless payment channels in many jurisdictions, ineffective monitoring, and controls, etc.

E-Travel Card will facilitate the cashless disbursement of travel allowance and other payments for local and foreign trips of public officials.

All officials will be issued with the e-Travel card and their imprest and per diem for travel will automatically be put on the card for use”. He pointed

The e-Travel Card is expected to deliver several benefits, including the elimination of the risk of carrying cash; transparency and ease of accountability; timely retirement of accountable Imprest; and improved monitoring and controls of budgetary allocations for official travels to avoid overspending.

The era of cash for travel in the public sector will soon be over, bringing further transparency and accountability in the use of public funds.