The witness protection programme has prompted a 283 percent rise in the Ministry of Justice travel budget for the next fiscal year.A total of $318,00 has allocated to travel expenses for the year beginning April 1, 2011. That compares to $83,000 for the current fiscal year.Asked why there was such a dramatic rise in the budget, Attorney General Michael Scott said last night: “I can advise that the travel items are related to the witness protection programme.”The programme has already seen several key witnesses in gang crimes relocated overseas.On Friday, Mr Scott said the cost of this would be split between several different departments this year, including the police. He was not in a position to specify the total figure the witness protection programme will cost, but said it includes funding for a senior Crown counsel in the DPP’s office to work on it.“We realise it’s important, we’ve seen how well it does work to produce some of the important convictions we’ve received. It will be adequately funded,” he said.Concerns over costs were raised by the Opposition when the Justice Protection Bill, which put the witness protection programme into formal effect, was passed last summer.Shadow Attorney General Trevor Moniz said: “It could get expensive very quickly. Clearly on this side [of the House], we would like to see the cost retained at a minimum for the programme to be effective and for it to be very carefully policed.”BDA MP Shawn Crockwell said: “The concern that we would like to raise today is how this programme will be financed. We have looked at other programmes around the world. In Honduras they had one and it became prohibitive in terms of costs.”However, Mr Scott, who was Junior Justice Minister at the time, pledged a close watch would be kept on expenses, which he said would be paid from the Consolidated Fund, Government’s main bank account.