Government appointees abused foreign travels – Presidency

The office of the President has justified the decision to impose a temporary travel ban on government appointees and Ministers claiming a lack of guidelines led to abuse of the process.

A statement signed by Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei Opare announced the President’s directive which only excluded the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey.

The memo added that guidelines in respect of future foreign travels aimed at minimizing disruption to Government’s domestic work will be communicated shortly.

Deputy Chief of Staff, Samuel Abu Jinapor in an interview with Joy FM stated that the President wants to develop a comprehensive system to minimize cost to the state.

“The way to prevent abuses and to ensure that you do away with them completely or minimize them to reasonable level is to make sure that you have a standardization, you have guidelines, you have modalities. Say this particular type of conferences will require the attendance of the Minister himself, and that another set of conferences may not require the attendance of a minister or a deputy Minister, or a Director can represent the government or the country adequately. I mean to put in place proper guidelines and proper standard by which travels or request for travels can either approved or disapproved.”