FIRST CLASS TRAVEL PAID FOR BY A THIRD CLASS ECONOMY

Oct 30, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Thirty-two trips made by the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago cost the taxpayers of that country some one million dollars.
I wonder how much it cost the taxpayers of Guyana over the past two years to finance the foreign trips of the President of Guyana.
We have one of the most widely travelled presidents in the world. He has been to many countries.
It would be interesting to know just which countries of the free world he has not visited. To get an idea of just how much our President has travelled, just pick up a map of the world and identify the countries of the free world and then as you go through these countries, ask yourself which of these our President never touched foot on.
These trips collectively must have cost the taxpayers of Guyana a fortune and I hope that the government of Guyana would make known the collective bill that the taxpayers of Guyana have had to foot to facilitate the overseas travel of our President.
Burnham was notorious for his extravagance. When he visited foreign countries, it was akin to the Kings of yore touring the far reaches of their kingdoms. These royal trips cost a fortune.
President Jagdeo is not like that. He does not travel with oversized delegations. But he also does not stay at the Salvation Army.
There is a price tag to his trips and while these may not compare to Burnham’s, he has accumulated a tremendous amount of frequent flyer miles. The people of Guyana need to know what has become of these miles and more importantly the total cost of our President’s overseas travels.
When the PPP was in opposition it had railed against the extravagance of the PNCR regime and especially about the costly trips made by Burnham and his delegation at a time when the economy was in dire straits.
Hoyte came to power and reduced these large delegations but his overseas trips were also said to be extremely costly.
This is an issue that the Auditor General should look into, more especially so, since there have been reports that the families of certain ministers have also been travelling first class on State expense. Now a minister travelling on official business is entitled to travel first class. This is a given. But there is no way that the spouse or children of any minister should be entitled to the same privileges since they are not public officials and thus not permitted to travel at the State’s expense.
The Ministry of Finance needs to clarify for the media in Guyana just who is entitled to free first class travel on behalf of the government. I urge the media to do some probing into this matter to confirm just who is entitled to free first class travel at government expense and for what purposes.
Certainly this should only be for official trips of government officials. If it is found that the relatives of any government minister have travelled at government expense, then an explanation is necessary.
I urge the media to find out whether the spouses and children of government ministers are entitled to free first class travel and just how much, if indeed there is such a benefit, this has cost the taxpayers of Guyana. I urge the Auditor General to take an interest in these forms of expenditure and to report to the Guyanese people on the total value of overseas travel.
I urge those who are engaging in selective participation in the National Assembly to view this issue of overseas travel as one that is meritorious and to table the appropriate questions so that the people of Guyana can be provided with answers.
We are in a global recession and the sugar workers are only being offered 3% which, like the last wage increase they were offered, is below the inflation rate. Thus in real terms, the income of sugar workers has declined since their most recent increases have not kept abreast of inflation.
So in this tight situation, one expects that the government would be frugal with public spending and especially considering that they had to spend some seventy-six million dollars to rehabilitate the Lilendaal pumps.
If they had to install new pumps it would have cost even more so it is good when every cent can be prudently spent. Less travel will mean more pumping.

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FIRST CLASS TRAVEL PAID FOR BY A THIRD CLASS ECONOMY

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