Vice-President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has launched the e-Travel Card to facilitate the cashless disbursement of travel allowance and other payments for local and foreign trips of public officials.

The introduction of the card means that public officials will no more be provided with physical cash for their imprest when they are travelling for state duties.

Public officials will henceforth be issued with the e-Travel card with their per diem for travel and imprest automatically uploaded on the card for use.

According to the Vice-President, the card among other things is expected to eliminate the risk of carrying cash while travelling, ensure transparency and ease of accountability, timely retirement of accountable imprest and improve monitoring and controls of budgetary allocations for official travels to avoid overspending.

In a Facebook post to announce its launch, Dr. Bawumia said “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.”