A whopping 2,056 civil servants are broke

Masisi concurred that the new system would make government accounting less cumbersome and efficiently recover money from travelling officers. When presenting his motion to Parliament, Goya said government pays imprest to officers whose duties require travelling away from their stations within Botswana to cater for travelling expenses while officers travelling externally are paid a per diem for accommodation, food and incidental expenses.

"Under normal circumstances, an officer is not expected to account for the per diem, except when the costs of accommodation exceed 50 percent of the per diem. On the contrary, officers paid imprests are required to account for all the money and return the unspent amount within 14 days after the trip," he said.  The MP who is also a member of the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) stated that retiring imprest is a serious challenge across all government departments.