MONROVIA, Montserrado – President George Weah has issued a directive to restrict foreign travel for appointed officials in the executive branch.
The directive was issued on Thursday, through the office of the director general of the cabinet. It required all appointed officials, such as ministers and directors general, managing directors, commissioners, and commissioners general, deputies and assistants, as well as superintendents and city mayors, to obtain a travel authorization letter from the president prior to leaving the country. The directive goes into effect on June 1.
“Presidential appointees should provide evidence indicating the sponsors of their trips, period away from the country, along with their travel request letter,†the president also ordered.
The directive also requires that, as of July 1, 2019, ministries, agencies, and commissions eligible to attend statutory meetings or events in foreign countries must submit to the minister of state, schedules of the meeting or event and any intended quarterly travel plan for approval by the president.
Although the president acknowledges that appointees are entitled to one-month annual leave that can be split, the new order required that officials intending to spend their leave time out of the country must communicate that.
Meanwhile, the president has instructed authorities of the Liberian Immigration Service to ensure full compliance with the travel restriction for his appointees.
Officials of the Weah-led administration have been criticized for carrying large delegations and spending exorbitantly on foreign travels. In 2018, it was alleged that Finance Minister Samuel Tweah spent US$16,000 to upgrade his flight from business to first class while aboard an Emirates Airbus 380 flight out of Accra, Ghana to Beijing, China, where he and the president, along with more than 50 government officials, were attending a forum on China-Africa relations. According to a Daily Observer report, the Finance Ministry issued a press release following the report and said Tweah’s action did not violate the government’s Approved Travel Ordinance.
National Port Authority Deputy Managing Director Celia Cuffy-Brown had also made the trip with her daughter and niece, according to FrontPage Africa.
In his recent address on the state of the nation’s economy and other pertinent national issues, Weah acknowledged the difficulties and hardship Liberians were now faced with, such as the high cost of goods and services, as a result of the continuous significant depreciation of the Liberian dollar against the U.S. dollar currency.
He said the sudden drop in inflows of U.S. dollar in the country has inflicted a huge pressure on the economy, and devalued the local currency, moving prices upward.
Featured photo by Zeze Ballah
