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UPDATE: Hon. Walwyn made $20k plus trip to Papua New Guinea!
Dr. Smith, the Leader of Government Business, was at the time responding to a question posed to him by First District Representative Honourable Andrew A. Fahie on the total amount of money expended on travel abroad on official duty by all elected Ministers of his Cabinet.
The Minister of Finance, Hon. Smith, was also to provide details from November 2011 when his administration took office to present, inclusive of podium, incidentals, airline tickets, hotel, ground and other transportation and all other travelling and related expenses.
Hon. Walwyn’s over $20 thousand airline/ferry ticket-information missing
It was revealed that Minister Myron V. Walwyn made several trips since taking office, with some three to London, according to details provided by Premier Smith.
Out of all the Cabinet Ministers travelling, one of the most expensive airline/ferry tickets was racked up by the Education and Culture Minister when he took a trip in April of 2013 to Papua New Guinea to attend the 8th Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting, costing tax payers some twenty thousand, eight hundred and seventeen dollars ($20,817.00) just for that airline/ferry ticket.
On the same Papua New Guinea trip, Minister Walwyn also obtained a Per Diem of two thousand two hundred dollars ($2,200.00)
No information was provided in the chart handed out in the HOA for his hotel, ground transportation and benefits to the Territory for such an expensive trip. The true cost of this trip remains unclear.
In fact, according to the spreadsheet given out in answers to the question, Hon. Walwyn did not provide the cost of any hotels, ground transportation, benefits to Territory and had not given reports on any of his trips therefore the $50, 678.46 figure given by the Premier on December 17, 2013 as the reported total cost for Minister Walwyn's trips is misleading.
According to the spreadsheet, two other Ministers of Government, Premier Smith and Minister for Communications and Works Honourable Mark H. Vanterpool, also had missing information. Dr. Smith provided no cost for ground transportation, which brings the truth of the total cost of the Premier’s overseas travel into question. In addition, no benefits to the Territory or reports were listed for the House of Assembly. The same spreadsheet also had no benefits to the Territory or reports on Hon. Vanterpool's many overseas trips.
Senior Ministers of the Smith Administration, Deputy Premier and Minister for Natural Resources and Labour Dr. the Honourable Kedrick D. Pickering and the Minister for Health and Social Development Honourable Ronnie W. Skelton were both forthcoming with all the information requested according to the spreadsheet.
Over $245,044.06 figure misleading on NDP overseas globetrotting!
After research by this news site, we have concluded that because of all the missing information that will add to the cost of the figure [ $245,044.06] given by Premier Smith, the information given in the House of Assembly on December 17, 2013 is inaccurate and the cost is much higher. For example, Premier Smith did not provide the cost for the trip he took to Asia to open the BVI Asia House.
Trips from Cuba to France to India - NDP Ministers rack up miles of Travel
The National Democratic Party’s Ministers of Government over their two years in office have travelled all over the world to almost every continent on tax payers’ monies even after claiming the former Government left the country broke.
Dr. Pickering, the 7th District Representative, got the trophy for the most frequent flyer miles according to the information on the spreadsheet, however, none of his airline/ferry tickets came close to over 20 thousand dollars spent by Minister Myron V. Walwyn.
The Deputy Premier racked up travel miles to New York, Portugal, Italy, India, Miami, Brussels, Aruba, Jamaica, France and even Lima, Peru among others.
Minister Skelton went to some more exotic places. For example, in July of this year he visited Communist Cuba and just last month he visited Las Vegas on tax payers’ monies. The Health Minister’s trips also took him to Panama, London and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania among other trips.
Communications and Works Minister Mark H. Vanterpool’s favourite spot on tax payers’ monies seems to be Miami, Florida where he made some four trips in less than two years in office. Minister Vanterpool also traveled to Barcelona, Spain, Curacao and Panama among other places.
Hon. Walwyn’s favourite spot on tax payers’ monies seems to be London, United Kingdom where he made some three trips in less that 2 years in office. He also travelled to the Caribbean region with stops in St. Kitts, Jamaica, Grenada and Antigua.
In an invited comment, First District Representative Honourable Andrew A. Fahie, agreed that “the information is incomplete as they have not come clean with their two years of continued careless and reckless spending on overseas travel and on projects after saying the last Administration left the country broke."
Hon. Fahie, the former Minister for Education and Culture, accused the Dr. Smith Administration of habitual lack of adherence to the rules in the Protocols that they signed, especially as it relates to Section 11b in terms of how all projects will be done.
See previous story posted December 27, 2013:
Premier fails to detail cost for overseas travels
- Over $200k spent on travel expenses over two year period
ROAD TOWN, Tortola, VI – The Third Sitting of the Third Session of the Second House of Assembly held on December 17, 2013 was another occasion where NDP government officials reportedly continued to provide insufficient answers to questions posed by Members of the Opposition.
This time around, the issue centered on a breakdown for amounts spent on overseas travel where First District Representative Honourble Andrew A. Fahie posed questions to Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable D. Orlando Smith, seeking details on bills for overseas government expenses.
Premier Smith informed the House that for the past two years government expended $245,446 on Cabinet Ministers' travel bills for overseas official business. A breakdown for the expenses, purpose of trip and reports following trips were also provided.
However when asked by Hon Fahie for information relating to hotel, airline tickets, ground and other transportation, destinations, benefits of each trip and reports done after each trip, Premier Smith told the House that he was not in a position to get the requested information at the time.
"I will have this information available at the next sitting of the House or to your office as soon as it is available," said Premier Smith.
The response did not go down well with Hon. Fahie as he told the Honourable House that the officers had already travelled and securing the information should not have been an up-hill task given the modern age of technology.
"...Still no excuse for not having the figure because it's the people's tax money and they [public servants] done travel on it," Hon Fahie said. But Premier Smith in response stated that the system does not work that way.
As indicated in the House by Members of the opposition on a number of other occasions, the mode of responses to questions asked, puts the people’s representatives in a position of not being able to report effectively to their constituents in a timely manner.
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92 Responses to “UPDATE: Hon. Walwyn made $20k plus trip to Papua New Guinea!”
I find it remarkable that Dr. S...th finds nothing immoral about misrepresenting the facts in the legislative counsel
If both parties were recklessly spending our money, then we will still accept this criticism and don't put any of them back in power again.
When you have the power, you find all of the meetings going on around the world so you can get to travel to the places where your own money can't take you and stay in hotels that if it was your own money, you wouldn't have been able to afford, not forgetting first class tickets, even to VG. Keep track of those meetings and make sure you put in full attendance - that's what politics is about!
After a 100,000 dinner now a 20,000 trip M...n is reckless with government money if you ask me
This could be a nice little earner for the BVI importing little heads to sell as natures little secret souvenir to cruise ship passengers. Yes Minister, a very useful and value for money trip.
THEY COULD FIND ALL THIS MONEY TO DO S#!T WITH, BUT WHEN IT CAME TO PAYING US OUR INCREASE OF PAY ; WHICH WE EARNED; THEY CRIED BROKE !!!! SET OF WASTE !!!!
Did someone mentioned who accompanied them? I got news from good sources that one particular min. met up with his @ &*^%*, OMG!
Yes, because VIP politicians did everything via Skype and Outlook, they never traveled. Tell them publish all the travel and consultancy contracts from 2000 to present and all of them in there will s#!t their gabadene pants. Sick of them now.
That leaves just over $1,000.00 per day for 3 square meals, drinks, taxis or a car rental. There isn't a lot in the way of entertainment in Port Moresby, but there are some pretty decent restaurants such as Rapala or Bacchus. I wonder if he had the Crepes Suzette or the imported caviar?
Tough job, but I guess someone has to do it. Yep, our poor, poor government sure is struggling to keep its broke a$$ head above water.
No wonder the $100,000.00 teacher's dinner didn't seem like an excessive amount of money to the minister. Everything is relative I guess!