Charles Kong Soo

The for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment spent $250 mil­lion on trav­el.

This was re­vealed by Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley while speak­ing at the PNM's post-bud­get na­tion­al pub­lic meet­ing at Pig­gott's Cor­ner, Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road, Bel­mont, on Fri­day night.

Row­ley said, "It's im­por­tant for gov­ern­ment mem­bers to trav­el be­cause we do have busi­ness out­side T&T.

"So min­is­ters will have to trav­el from time to time but we be­lieve that trav­el ought not to be a perk and a jun­ket.

"It ought to be done on­ly when nec­es­sary be­cause it is very ex­pen­sive.

"Would you be­lieve the gov­ern­ment that just went out of of­fice, guess how much mon­ey the min­istries, I'm not talk­ing about state en­ter­pris­es, the Ju­di­cia­ry, the om­buds­man, just the min­istries, the ex­ec­u­tive, the gov­ern­ment spent on trav­el in the last five years?

"Two hun­dred and fifty mil­lion dol­lars."

Tak­ing a jibe at for­mer prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, he said the peo­ple of T&T re­ceived sav­ings on the night of Sep­tem­ber 7, the minute the PNM got the ma­jor­i­ty vote and he be­came Prime Min­is­ter, be­cause he start­ed sav­ing on a hair­dress­er and a pow­der man trav­el­ling with him.

Row­ley said it was one thing to say that gov­ern­ment trav­el was im­por­tant and nec­es­sary, but when the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs spent $30 mil­lion on trav­el, the ques­tion to ask was where were they go­ing and for what pur­pose.

He said the Gov­ern­ment would be look­ing at ways to cut out waste and cor­rup­tion in the pub­lic sec­tor, such as state en­ter­pris­es leas­ing hun­dreds of mo­tor ve­hi­cles.

Row­ley said in­struc­tions were made through Cab­i­net that all gov­ern­ment ve­hi­cles, bar­ring spe­cif­ic na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and state ve­hi­cles, must car­ry the in­signia of the agen­cies that were leas­ing ve­hi­cles and the in­struc­tion would go out to every per­ma­nent sec­re­tary.

He al­so said there was to be no pur­chase of any ve­hi­cle ded­i­cat­ed to any min­is­ter and no min­is­ter's dri­ver was to dri­ve any pub­lic ve­hi­cle be­cause it was a cost to tax pay­ers.

On the is­sue of mass tran­sit, Row­ley said the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) was in­vit­ed to come to Trinidad to look at the sit­u­a­tion with the eyes of in­de­pen­dent ex­perts.

He said when the IDB gave its re­port with rec­om­men­da­tions, the Gov­ern­ment would then de­cide how it was go­ing to treat with the need for a mass tran­sit sys­tem of what­ev­er kind in T&T.

Row­ley said the PNM start­ed off with a rail sys­tem, but the for­mer gov­ern­ment un­der­mined and scrapped it.

He said the Gov­ern­ment would not green light the project un­til it got the IDB's re­port and af­ter hold­ing con­sul­ta­tions with the peo­ple be­fore tak­ing a de­ci­sion.

Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, mean­while, said when the PNM left of­fice the pub­lic debt was $45 bil­lion, com­pared to the UNC's $77 bil­lion.

He said the for­mer gov­ern­ment not on­ly used up all the cash re­serves in the Cen­tral Bank, it al­so maxed out the coun­try's bor­row­ing lim­it.

Im­bert said there were projects that need­ed to be fund­ed.

Among these are a new port in Port-of-Spain; con­vert­ing the Beetham dump in­to an in­dus­tri­al es­tate; build­ing a high­way to Man­zanil­la, a road to To­co, and a new fer­ry port; con­vert­ing the whole Wa­ter­front area to hous­ing, recre­ation and en­ter­tain­ment; a bet­ter road to Ch­agua­nas; and a ringroad around Ch­agua­nas. He said he in­tend­ed to in­clude a mass tran­sit sys­tem as well.

Stu­art Young, min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, said the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to im­ple­ment sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion and ini­tia­tives to en­sure prop­er and ef­fi­cient man­age­ment for T&T. These in­clude a rev­enue au­thor­i­ty, lo­cal gov­ern­ment re­form to be passed be­fore the next con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions next year, pub­lic pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, whistle­blow­ing leg­is­la­tion by De­cem­ber, re­form­ing the process for ap­point­ing a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nance Cen­tre, and re­sus­ci­tat­ing cy­ber crime leg­is­la­tion.