Senior government officials including Cabinet Secretaries will be required to seek online approval for foreign travel in the coming weeks as President William Ruto's administration undertakes austerity measures.
While addressing the National Development Implementation Committee (NDIC) meeting, Head of Public Service Felix Koskei noted that the online platform would be rolled out in August.
He explained that the system was being introduced to help in monitoring the travel of government officials.
The system is also aimed at eliminating the correspondence of letters between various government offices.
Also set to seek approval on the online platform will be Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of state corporations.
"My office in collaboration with ICT has come up with an integrated information system. From August 1, we shall go paperless.
"When you want to travel abroad you will just log in, upload your application and the process will go through until it reaches to the President so that we avoid a lot of paperwork," he stated.
Foreign travel has been a concern owing to the billions used to facilitate the travel of the officers.
Notably, despite directives by the President on the reduction of foreign travel expenses, his administration registered an increase in foreign travel expenses within the first nine months of the last financial year.
Between July 2023 to March 2023, the national government spent Ksh5.8 billion on foreign travel.
"In the period under review, the total expenditure on travel by MDAs was Ksh18.18 billion comprising Ksh12.33 billion and Ksh5.85 billion for domestic and foreign travel respectively.
"This recorded a 29.2 per cent growth Ksh4.11 billion consisting of Ksh2.94 billion (31.3 per cent) and Ksh1.17 billion (25.1 per cent) for domestic and foreign travel respectively) compared to a similar period FY 2022/23," read the report by the Controller of Budget.
