Premier Ewart Brown and his entourage spent $320,000 of taxpayers' cash on trips in the last fiscal year.

Dr. Brown and his team spent $53,000 on ground transport alone — including $16,000 splashed out solely by Dr. Brown travelling around Washington, DC for President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony in January.

His press secretary Glenn Jones, refused to say how the Premier gets about when he's overseas on the Bermuda public purse, but Royal Gazette reporters have seen him getting in and out of large black SUVs with shaded windows.

Last March, Dr. Brown unveiled plans to reduce Ministers' travel costs after Government's travel bill shot up over a two- or three-year period.

About one month after that announcement, the Premier spent more than $10,000 on a nine-day trip to a Caribbean Conference in Turks and Caicos and Florida, including more than $3,000 on ground transport.

His entourage spent a further $10,000-plus on that outing.

The total breakdown for 2008/09, revealed in Parliamentary Responses to questions by Opposition leader Kim Swan, was: $168,353 on airfare; $82,876 on accommodation; $4,568 on meals; $53,034 on ground transport; $11,940 per diem (extras) total $320,772.

The trip for President Obama's ceremony cost $33,433, two thirds of which was spent by the Premier, and the rest by the two people who travelled with him.

Late last year, the Premier announced he and his Ministers would be travelling coach class for trips that are three hours or less.

Mr. Jones refused to say whether Dr. Brown has stuck to that pledge.

The figures show that in April this year the Premier's airfare bill for a trip to New York was $1,914.

The airfare bill on the same trip for Junior Tourism Minister Marc Bean was $852. Meanwhile, Dr. Brown's airfare for a trip to Georgia for a PGA meeting this February was $1,848.

One of the most expensive trips was the Latin American Risk and Insurance Managers Association meeting in Buenos Aires, last November, by Dr. Brown and Mr. Jones.

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