The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has launched an electronic travel card aimed at controlling travel expenditure of public service workers including government officials.
The card is designed to regulate and control waste and misappropriation of public funds by travelling officials for official duties.
The launch was held on Friday, February 4, 2022 at the 22nd Annual Delegates Conference of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) in Cape Coast.
The two-day conference, was held under the theme: ‘The role of the CAGD in advancing the digitalisation agenda of Ghana’.
A Facebook post by the Vice President said the system would eliminate the high risk of cash transactions for official travels for public services, ensure transparency, accountability imprests.
“Since Independence, public officials are provided cash for their imprests when they travel. This system has many associated problems including the risks of carrying cash, fraud in the disbursement of imprests, the increasing use of cashless payment channels in many jurisdictions, ineffective monitoring and controls”
“Today, that era is coming to an end with my launch of the e-Travel Card to 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 imprests and per diem for travel will automatically be put on the card for use.”
“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 post reads.
The Vice President also noted that an era of cash for travel in the public sector will soon be “over, bringing further transparency and accountability in the use of public funds.”
The program had directors and staff of the Auditor General’s Department and finance officers from Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs) in attendance.
