Gail Alexan­der

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley made 19 of­fi­cial vis­its be­tween Sep­tem­ber 20, 2020, and Feb­ru­ary 29, 2024, at a to­tal cost of $10,652,878.67 in­clu­sive of flight in­sur­ance.

This was stat­ed in a writ­ten re­ply to an Op­po­si­tion ques­tion to the Prime Min­is­ter about the num­ber of times he trav­elled over­seas on of­fi­cial busi­ness. The re­ply was cir­cu­lat­ed in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

Al­so re­quest­ed was the cost of each trip in­clu­sive of ho­tel ac­com­mo­da­tion, meals, ground trans­port for the Prime Min­is­ter and his en­tourage and any oth­er re­lat­ed costs in­curred.

The re­ply stat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter, dur­ing the past three years, “has ho­n­oured his com­mit­ment as the elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the peo­ple of T&T.”

It was stat­ed that Row­ley at­tend­ed sev­er­al meet­ings with Cari­com and oth­er world lead­ers “to con­tin­ue to fos­ter good re­la­tions with our al­lies through rep­re­sen­ta­tion and part­ner­ships.”

The re­ply al­so stat­ed that oth­er re­lat­ed costs in­curred in­clude the pay­ment of flight in­sur­ance by the Min­istry of Fi­nance and the pay­ment for one re­turn air trav­el tick­et by Caribbean Air­lines.

Ac­tu­al ex­pen­di­ture ranged from a max­i­mum of $1,291, 405.87 for a trip over Sep­tem­ber 3 to 10, 2023, for a strate­gies en­er­gy brief­ing ses­sion with Pro­man in Switzer­land and meet­ings with BP in Lon­don and Shell Oil Com­pa­ny in Am­s­ter­dam.

The min­i­mum trip cost was $75,319 for a De­cem­ber 14, 2023, trip to St Vin­cent for the di­a­logue be­tween the Pres­i­dents of Guyana and Venezuela. Four trips ranged be­tween $1,291,405.87 and $1,012, 021.62.