Ministerial Travel Cost Webpage Goes Live
The Cabinet Office advised that a web page on the Government Portal which will provide details of Ministerial travel is currently available for viewing. The site can be accessed via www.travel.gov.bm.
A spokesperson said, “The current data on the site highlights the recent New York trip conducted by the Premier, the Hon. Michael Dunkley in late September.
“The public will recall that the Premier visited New York for two days to conduct meetings and promote Bermuda as a reputable business and leisure destination to key stakeholders and media in the city. As a final note, the page will be updated gradually, as Ministers travel to conduct Government business.”
The website lists the final cost of the recent New York trip as $3,228.15, and notes that the costs for persons accompanying the Premier are covered under their own Department.
It states, “The Premier was accompanied by Minister of Education and Economic Development, Dr. the Hon. Grant Gibbons and CEO Bermuda Business Development Agency, Ross Webber for the financial services meetings.
“The Minister of Tourism Development and Transport, the Hon. Shawn Crockwell and CEO Bermuda Tourism Authority, Bill Hanbury accompanied him for the tourism-related components.
“The Premier’s Press Officer, Nea Talbot, was on hand to manage the multiple media arrangements. The Premier was assisted in the performance of his duties by Advisor Sen. Jeff Baron.
“The costs for persons accompanying the Premier are covered under their own Department. As such Senator Baron’s accommodation cost are reflected in the charges associated with the Premier.”
Expenses
- Air Travel: $1,062.85
- Ground Transportation: $844.86
- Accommodation: $1226.79
- Meals: $93.65
- Miscellaneous: $
- Total Cost: $3,228.15
Read More About
Category: All, News, technology
Comments (45)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
Articles that link to this one:
- OBA: "Misguided And Mischievous Criticism" - Bernews.com : Bernews.com | November 3, 2014
- New $1472.97 Listing Added To Travel Page - Bernews.com : Bernews.com | November 3, 2014
Talk about value for money.
A certain former Premier with a penchant for travel on the taxpayer’s dime to non-productive far flung destinations in the near, middle and far east that NEVER produced tangible results for voters, would have spent more than this on the same trip for ground transportation and personal security alone!
$20k on ground trasportation alone when that certain former Premier when to Pres. Obama’s inauguration.
What you think Jeff is? That’s his personal security/advisor of Bull$. Another waste of Fk film as Dunk boy likes to say.
EXACTLY. Wake up dingbats! All Dunkley did was slap a fancy title on to Baron and all of a sudden it’s a new thing! Same engine different car. ….Oh the irony!!!
I counted at least 6 other people that accompanied him, can we have the cost for that too, smooth move though.
“the” – well done.You’re coming along.
““The costs for persons accompanying the Premier are covered under their own Department. As such Senator Baron’s accommodation cost are reflected in the charges associated with the Premier.””
If I understand this correctly, the $3228.15 are for the Premier and the Senator.
The costs for the other folks are not reflected in this number. However, the web site does not separately lists costs for Gibbons or Crockwell, for example. Thus, the total costs to the taxpayer is still a mystery.
I suggest you contact the Ministers / Premier and state your concerns / disappointment.
“Seek, and you shall find…”
By the way, the P.L.P. will want credit for this site being posted today right Mr. Zane DeSilva?
Lets hope the costs for the others will be posted soon as well. In any case this is a very welcome first. Can’t imagine the PLP producing these figures to the people who foot the bill.
Maybe we can hae some comparisson figures from some of the PLP trips which have produced zero return on the investment.
Gibbons didn’t stay in a hotel so no costs for Gibbons…next!
and all you dummies who disliked this comment…you really don’t have a clue about the truth…just wanna dislike for nothin
This is a good idea on the surface, but I do not think that it is anything more than a gimmick. The website is only as reliable as the information that goes into it. Is there any way to verify the information that goes into it? Where is PATI?
Darn stop taking away my reasons for a PATI request:)
Assuming Mr. Hanbury and Mr. Jones travelled utilizing the BTA costs, what kind of deal does the government have to secure airfare and accommodations for (1) the Premier, (2) Senator Baron, (3) Minister Gibbons, (4) Mr. Webber, (5) Minister Crockwell and (6) Mrs. Talbot under $4k? Seriously $90 bucks for food? I doubt they were eating McDonalds for two days. Real facts please?!
The $3.2k was for Dunkley and Baron.
The rest fall under different Ministries/Departments and will be uploaded shortly.
Reading is fundamental.
But I have a feeling you won’t believe anything they put up there either way. So why bother asking?
I presume the $90.00 for two people over two days included bagels
This is far more preferable than claiming years later, that your wife always paid half of the hotel room bill.
A little more believable too.
Why isn’t this believable? Surely the relevant Government department can verify whether or not the truth is being told.
As the OBA is in charge, I am sure if this was not true, the former Premier’s detailed travel expenses would have been released along with proof that he was lying.
You keep on believing that OK.
So a quick review:
Air Travel: $1,062.85 – at 2 tickets that $530 for a round trip to NY
Ground Transportation: $844.86 – at approx. $100/hr, this amounts to about 8 hours of limo service in NY for travel over 3 days to and from venues.
Accommodation: $1226.79 – 2 rooms (for Premier and Senator) for 2 nights each, total is approx. $300 / room night
Meals: $93.65 – I can only guess that they were provided meals by the hosts. This would cover 1 person’s dinner in NY, unless they ate bagels, falafel and hot dogs every day.
Actually, these costs seem within reason to me, the only odd charge is for the meals (but its lower than what I’d expect). Maybe now that these cost are posted, politicians will think twice about what they charge the public.
First class tickets cost $1000 +…just saying.
$1226.79? Looks like dunkley and jeff might have shared a suite.
@Jimmy Cricket
The Premier’s known entourage were three people, NOT two; Dunkley, Baron and Talbot. Now make your revision on costs. Air travel of 3 tickets $354.28 per ticket. Begins to sound implausible? When it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
And we await further revisions as the truth trickles out.
@John I Do Not Believe You
Good point. I think at best the commentary is confusing. I want non ambiguous speech on this. Then need to specifically state which people were included in these costs. On a second read, the site details imply that Baron and Talbot were involved in these costs.
I’d actually rather they combine all costs from across departments and post altogether. That’s the information that we really want.
@more than enough – at the end of the day you’re probably on the right track , but for now we still have questions.
” Air travel of 3 tickets $354.28 per ticket” Actually this price is very much believable. My wife and I are travelling to NY next month and paying under $300 a ticket.
So we can comfortably multiply this by seven to get a more realistic figure;
$22,597.05, plus all wages (they are bieng paid) at minimum. Round it up to $30,000, conservative estimate.
Keep in mind that the bta does not have to disclose any information about how their money is spent, because we accepted the bs about non disclosure… Yet it is still tax payers money bieng spent.
So while donk and jeff stayed at best western davey and bill stayed at the hilton, taxi vs limo, hotdogs vs surf and turf.
And i think i remember reading that the bta hosted (that ain’t free) the perfume launch and some tourism breakfast, all government funded i might add. Also i think that government also hosted some other event, i presume that didn’t involve any cost either.
This is like an unfinished paper, don’t hand it in till it’s done. Tired of the piecemeal approach of the oba.
Bunch of jokers.
Only 3228.15 Dollars — and there are people making Noise about this! – I gather some people wanted the Premier to
Stay in one of those $30 a night run down Motels — $3228 is a bargin for the Leader of any Country.
@X man and Be Like Me…please pause to breath in rational, logical and plausible thoughts.
There are budget airlines and cheap airfares.
Do MPs and Senators get airline discounts because they travel on government business? If so, why not state it?
Do they get first class and/or business class tickets at discount fares from the airlines?
If their airfares were discounted by the airlines then so be it, so why not state it?
$205 per person per night at the hotel for 3 rooms, discounted? Why not state it?
I find ground transport highly suspect – $884.86 – they spent more travelling in Manhattan to launch a perfume than they did for the cost of one person’s airfare and 2 days stay in New York? Or put another way, they spent as much on ground transport as they could have spent on 3 bottles of Lilli perfume.
Pardon my confusion, I thought that the perfume launch was in Manhattan, as were the hotels? $884.86 ground transport?
Does one have to chisel down to the bone before you realise that you are being fleeced? By false and an omission of information.
Perhaps, if OBA supporters stopped looking into the past at the PLP government and look at how to stop these transgressions from reoccurring from the current government, then we are on the road to plugging the leaks to our national debt.
How much is used from the public purse by government officials deserves to be scrutinised and stopped, whether PLP or OBA.
These guys didn’t even claim their ‘per diem’.
The Previous Livinginup Party billed meals AND claimed their per diem – even for partial travel days. After all, they felt it was their ‘right’.
dont forget the lingerie
For jeff?
I have to give the OBA one thing…they are SLICK! When Ewart and the PLP did something wrong, it was right out in the open with no turning back.
THE OBA will blatantly fool you and then BLATANTLY try to cover it up! And half of us believe the foolishness they throw at us! Oh good Lord.
It’s sad that we’ve had to come to this sort of thing (thanks to past Premiers) but hey, isn’t it nice to be able to ascertain this info? And I might add, i imagine traveling members of the OBA must feel pretty good about themselves to not have to hide anything. You get better sleep at night when you aren’t doing shady stuff all day. Good for you Premier Dunkley. May you continue to sleep well at night and do what is best for your beloved country within respectable means. Bravo on doing the right thing. And THANK YOU.
This web page so far is a very weak attempt at transparency. Having covered only the premiers expenses and as said in the documentation on the website the accomodation for jb is included (strange…what about his flight cost?) in this $3,228 number.
Also mentioned are gibbons, crockwell, ross weber, nea tucker, and bill…not mentioned are dodwell, or glen jones.
That is an entourage of nine (at least)…and counting?
How about an entourage of all the numbers, or is that too much to ask?
All money spent on every one in every way including event hosting costs however much lili bermuda recieved and the wages that all nine of you got paid. This would be a true reflection of the cost incurred.
Obviously my earlier conservative estimate was on the low side.
As much as folk don’t like the PLP. they can’t keep their name out of their mouth. It’s been 2 yrs. who cares about the PLP. what is the OBA doing. Don’t answer I know.
I’ll take a page out of Minister Bob Richards book . Like him , I just don’t trust the figures put out by this government .
I admit I am really bad at computers and the internet but I went to this site and I was “transferred” to this site automatically
http://www.citvbermuda.com/ministers/
which is a totally blank calendar – not impressive
Furthermore, add in all the administrative costs/wages involved in planning this trip and the costs/wages involved in launching the website…which essentially shows only cents on the dollars which were spent.
It took almost two weeks to compile this lack of information, a meager four points of reference are given covering only the premiers expenses and vaugely stating that jb’s expenses are associated with the premier.
How very concise! Is this “best practice” ? “honesty and transparency” ? or “value for money”? All I see is “business as usual” ,in support of “the status quota”.
Why take so long to do something…and not take the time to do it right?
Dunkley said he would provide his expenses for the ny trip on the site, so he did (allegedly). Unfortunately he failed to mention that it will be next to impossible to ascertain the total costs involved in this excursion because it is still yet to be seen what were the costs incurred by th remaining ministers, civil servants, senator/assistant/advisor/bodygaurd and whether or not these figures will ever be on the site at all.
Not to mention the bta entourage who refuse to conform to pati, and continue to fly under the radar not disclosing any of their financial information… flying free and untethered like some secret society.
Again I am not impressed at this weak attempt the flight and hotel cost were most likely known before the trip, all that was added is the ground transportation and the food costs, and that took 10 days! Typical, remember to add up the administrative costs/wages (that ain’t cheap). If this is an example of the way oba does business it is poor.
We deserve better, we cannot keep accepting this type of slackness.
LOL! Damned if you do……. damned if you don’t.
The big difference when comparing the two governments is this, one government had a sense of entitlement and regardless of their own financial situation, over spent on hotel rooms and first class fares because they could. The other government, as identified in another article today, do not feel the need to flaunt their wealth and act responsibly. They are in politics not for the money but because they genuinely care about their country. When the other side gets like minded people into their party, then we can start pointing fingers.
Then why accept “compensation” for their genuine care?
Now this clown is on vacation, supposedly. He is also booked to an alcohol event in england… the price for the venue is stated as £8,000 per night plus tax. This is already double the new york trip price and we haven’t included the catering for the event, the flight or accommodation costs, ground transportation, or food. Bob is suppossed to be there as well and whoever else they choose to invite maybe the same entourage that went to new york. Am i to understand this outlay of cash is to promote rum, something that we do not even make here…goslings ships it in and adds molasses or something like that. Goslings has been a succesful company for years, most likely still experiencing growth throughout the recession. Are we now funding this event on their behalf?
Poor ms hanson and her bermuda shorts isn’t getting this type of endorsment and government funded advertisement, is she not freind or family?
Bob can stand up in front of us and claim that there is no money for anything save servicing the debt, knowing full well that he is booked to this rum fest already. Incredible.
Most of us probably haven’t had time to peruse the detailed information on the gov. travel site yet and this clown is already off on another flight enjoying some of his vacation pay (gov. sponsered vacation that is) how many weeks of vacation do we pay for an mp? How many sick days do they have? How many weeks of vacation (paid) has the bta slated for it’s executives?
This set of politicians is no different than the rest…all they do is spend and take home all our tax dollars without effecting much meaningful change for bermuda as a whole.
Yet everyone of their lives and bank accounts improve. Taking from the poor and giving to the rich…same old story.
No ones paying attention, wake up and live ppl!