Richard?Lord

?For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice, Regi­nald Du­mas, says Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona must give the na­tion a sat­is­fac­to­ry ex­pla­na­tion about the pro­ject­ed $7.9 mil­lion cost of his for­eign trav­el for 2017.

Du­mas said that in the wake of rev­e­la­tions in Thurs­day's meet­ing of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee meet­ing at Tow­er D, Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain.

The lengthy meet­ing was chaired by House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George.

It was com­mit­tee mem­ber, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat who raised the is­sue ask­ing whether some­one had lost his mind.

The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent al­so pro­ject­ed an ad­di­tion $6.4 mil­lion for "Over­seas-Trav­el Di­rect Charges."

Ac­count­ing Of­fi­cer at the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Ser­rette led the team from Car­mona's Of­fice at the meet­ing.

Pres­i­dent Car­mona was ex­pect­ed to trav­el to Chi­na and Eu­ro­pean coun­tries dur­ing the year.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Du­mas said he was tak­en aback when he be­came aware of the pro­ject­ed cost of trav­el for the Pres­i­dent.

He said he could not un­der­stand "whey the Pres­i­dent would want to trav­el to all these places , to do what, at the ex­pense of the tax­pay­er."

Du­mas said one could have un­der­stood the sit­u­a­tion "if he were an ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent and was go­ing ion Gov­ern­ment busi­ness, but he is a cer­e­mo­ni­al Pres­i­dent so I am not sure of the pur­pose of these pro­ject­ed trips."

Du­mas said : "It would be up to the His Ex­cel­len­cy to ex­plain to the peo­ple of T&T why he felt he should make all these trips."

Du­mas said Car­mona should al­so ex­plain the pur­pose of the trips, adding that he "cer­tain­ly wants to hear from him be­fore say­ing any­thing more."

Du­mas said he was "par­tic­u­lar­ly tak­en aback when he saw the cost of the trips , par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time when T&T is fac­ing eco­nom­ic dif­fi­cul­ties."

He in­sist­ed that "the Pres­i­dent ought to give the na­tion a good, full, prop­er and ac­cept­able ex­pla­na­tion of his (trav­el) re­quests."??