Premier Ewart Brown yesterday claimed blunders by Civil Service staff had caused confusion over how he and his entourage racked up $280,000 overseas expenses in a ten-month spell.

Speaking in the House of Assembly, Dr. Brown hit back at accusations by the Opposition United Bermuda Party that he leads a “lavish” lifestyle funded by taxpayers.

The Premier claimed Civil Service mistakes had led to the release of incorrect figures falsely suggesting he splashed out $4,000 a night on hotel bills in the UK and $19,000 on gifts during a two-day tour of American colleges.

He attacked the UBP for failing to check the numbers before criticising Government — but conceded the Opposition had been provided with “innocently confused” information by civil servants in response to a series of Parliamentary questions.

Dr. Brown did not dispute the overall figure of $287,000 he and his companions were reported as spending on 16 trips from last July to the end of last month.

Yesterday, he appeared to suggest the cash was spent in a different way to how Government had previously stated.

“They accused me of spending lavishly, they accused honourable members of this House of fiscal irresponsibility, and they did so without hesitation or pause — without the wherewithal to check the numbers twice before mounting the soapbox,” said Dr. Brown.

“What kind of leader would spend $19,000 on gifts over two days, Mr. Speaker? Not this one.

“What kind of leader would spend $4,000 a night on a hotel room, Mr. Speaker? Not this one.

“What kind of leader would allow those ridiculous accusations to go unchecked, Mr. Speaker? Not this one.

“I will furiously defend the reputation of this Government when it comes to the public purse. We have earned the people’s trust and we will not allow it to be eroded by obscure historical references in a newspaper.”

Figures released last week stated the Premier spent $23,448 on a hotel bill during a one-week trip to an Overseas Territories Consultative Council meeting in the UK last November. This works out at an average of $3,908 a night.

After suggesting the figures were incorrect, Dr. Brown did not explain how the misinformation came about. His Press Secretary Glenn Jones later pointed out the $23,000 was in fact a shared hotel bill for the Premier, Civil Service head Kenneth Dill, former Press Secretary Scott Simmons, Chief of Staff Wayne Caines and Senator Philip Perinchief.

Last week’s statistics also stated the Premier spent $19,087 on gifts during a two-day trip to colleges in Huntsville and Atlanta.

Yesterday, Dr. Brown claimed this was also incorrect, saying: “We did not provide gifts to students. That $19,000 figure was placed in the wrong category of a spreadsheet created by a civil service financial reporter before it was delivered to the House.”

He also pointed to wrong figures which suggested Mr. Caines had bought a $9,704 gift at a Caribbean Catastrophe Risk Insurance meeting in Washington, D.C. This cash was actually spent on a student banquet in Washington, he said.

“Perhaps the information was innocently confused by the civil servants who prepared the report because both events happened in the same city and information on both events was requested by the Opposition,” he said.

Dr. Brown went on to accuse the Opposition of turning the data into “political fodder”.

“Civil servants work long days and hard nights to make sure the Government runs efficiently. Civil servants are not the reason some members of this House took numbers and transformed them into political footballs,” he said.

He further defended his overseas expenses by saying he combines his Premier role with that of Minister for Tourism and Transport, and claimed that journeys abroad had helped bring the PGA Grand Slam of Golf to Bermuda and secure links with JetBlue, United Airlines and Zoom.

He added that he had saved the taxpayer tens of thousands of dollars by making his own arrangements for accommodation while conducting tourism business in New York.

Opposition shadow justice minister, John Barritt, said that his party were only asking “fair questions, straight-forward questions and indeed, you might say astute questions”.

Telling the House the Opposition was just doing its job of keeping the Government to account, Mr. Barritt said: “If we don’t ask, they won’t tell. There has been a suggestion that somehow we had got the numbers wrong and in fact, that wasn’t us.

“What we ask the people of this country to do is to judge based on the answers that were given — gifts of $19,000 on visits with students abroad, that those weren’t gifts, they were raffles. We hope they weren’t like the Southside Lottery. But $19,000 has apparently been spent.”

He added: “Four people went to London for the Overseas Territories conference, all of them spent $56,000 of the taxpayers’ money. If you take out the airfare of $6,640 each that means about $30,000 was spent on hotels and food for four people — that’s $7,000 per person.

“We ask these questions: A, to bring the Government to account, and B, the people of this country can ask whether they are getting value for money.”

Mr. Barritt also criticised the Premier’s “entourage”. He said: “What we have seen with the election of Dr. Brown is the development of an entourage, all of which increases the salaries to the Premier’s office of $250,000-$300,000.

“There is this development of an entourage on the roads as well.”

Dr. Brown hit back, saying: “On no occasion have I as Premier driven around this country with two SUVs in front of me, or behind. That is something that has been devised by the camp opposite and bandied about as if it was the truth.”

Last Monday, The Royal Gazette ran a report based on the figures released in the House the previous Friday. Dr. Brown could not be contacted for a comment before that article was published, and failed to respond to a number of requests for comment throughout the week before disputing the figures in a press release on Thursday.