The UBP has defended its right to scrutinise the Premier’s travel expenses as the row over how he spent $287,000 in ten months deepens.

Last night a breakdown in costs was still unavailable but the Premier has not disputed that he and his entourage totted up $287,000 in overseas expenses between July and April.

Dr. Ewart Brown told the House of Assembly on Friday that figures suggesting he spent $4,000 a night on hotels in the UK in November and $19,000 on gifts during a two-day tour of US colleges were incorrect. He blamed civil servants for the errors.

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 — an average $3,908 a night.

They also claimed he spent $19,087 on gifts during a two-day trip to colleges in Huntsville and Atlanta.

The amounts were stated in written answers to Parliamentary questions tabled by Opposition MPs in the United Bermuda Party. On Friday, Dr. Brown said the figures were incorrect and his Press Secretary later pointed out that the $23,000 was a shared hotel bill between the Premier, his former Press Secretary, Chief of Staff, the head of the Civil Service and Senator Philip Perinchief.

Dr. Brown told the House: “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.”

However, he did not say what the $19,087 was spent on.

Accusing the UBP of transforming the figures into “political footballs”, Dr. Brown said: “I will furiously defend the reputation of this Government when it comes to the public purse.”

Last night, however, Shadow Minister of Finance Patricia Gordon-Pamplin said it was the Opposition’s duty to hold the Government to account.

“Many members of the public may not realise that the ability to oblige the Government to provide truthful answers to formal questions in the House of Assembly and the Senate is a vital element of Bermuda’s democratic system, and in parliamentary systems everywhere,” she said.

“For the Premier to say last Friday that written questions are having a negative impact on the Civil Service is absurd. The system provides ample time to answer questions. Three questions a week for each minister is not too much work. It’s democracy. The Government has spent a lot of time since the 1998 election talking about operating ‘in the sunshine of public scrutiny’. If that is the case, they should welcome questions, instead of trying to shut them down.”

Mrs. Gordon-Pamplin said: “It was a shock to hear Dr. Brown describe our questions about the travel habits of Cabinet Ministers in his Government as an ‘abuse of the legitimate Parliamentary Question process’. Quite correctly, the Speaker ruled that the Premier’s comments were out of line. Answering our questions might have been annoying, and a little tedious for the civil servants in the Cabinet Office, but the only abuse of the process involved was Dr. Brown’s, since it was he who carelessly put his signature to answers which, he now tells us, were incorrect.

“Let’s get it straight — the Opposition used the information the Government formally provided to us, in writing, to make the comments we did last week. We used that information accurately and fairly. We suggested the Premier spent $19,087 on gifts during his college tour in May because that figure was given by the Premier, in his formal answer to our questions, in a column headed ‘Gifts’. We suggested he spent $23,448 on accommodation for six nights in London in November because that figure was given to us by the Premier, in his formal answer to our questions, as being the amount he spent on his hotel accommodation.

“We in the Opposition understand perfectly that travel is necessary. We quite understand that Premiers and Cabinet Ministers ought not to behave like paupers when they are representing Bermuda abroad.

“Notwithstanding the injury to the Premier’s pride that our comments seem to have inflicted, and the mistakes that his civil servants made that he failed to catch and correct, the facts about which we feel a sense of outrage remain the same. The Premier and some of the members of his Cabinet are spending very large sums of money on travel, and it is quite obvious from their answers to our questions that taxpayers’ money is being wasted in unnecessary travel, and in unnecessarily lavish travel.”

She said: “The total amount spent on travel by the Premier and the six ministers who answered our questions about their travel was, in round figures, $500,000. The Premier, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Education accounted for $400,000 of that total. The Minister of Finance (who has more reason for travel than perhaps any other minister except the Premier in his role as Tourism Minister), spent $60,000. The Minister of Social Rehabilitation, the Minister of Works and Engineering and the Minister of Community and Cultural Affairs accounted for the remaining $40,000. We don’t think those figures add up to sound fiscal management at all, and we believe we would not be doing our job as the Opposition Party if we did not ask the tough questions that need to be asked.

“Those who paid close attention will have noticed that Dr. Brown could only explain away a couple of questions as mistakes by civil servants. Others remain unanswered.

“Why, for example, did the Premier take five people with him to watch cricket in Trinidad? Dr. Brown makes much of travelling to get results for Bermuda. We understand why the Premier should have been in Trinidad. But what was his entourage of five there to do? What results did they manage to achieve?

“Why was it necessary to take five senior civil servants with him to visit Bermuda college students in Alabama and Georgia? What were those civil servants doing there? What results did they achieve for Bermuda? It is perhaps worth noting that Dr. Brown says it is important to make these students feel a part of the political process. And no doubt If he calls an election during the summer vacation, those he spoke to will feel sufficiently part of the political process to exercise their right to vote.

“We think it would be fairer if he took someone from the Opposition with him to these events, so that the students hear more than one political view — on which, after all, our democratic political system relies. But Dr. Brown has rejected that idea, no doubt because he feels it would be an unnecessary expense.

“We in the Opposition are not fooled by Dr Brown’s impassioned defence of what we continue to say is his lavish spending on travel. We’re not impressed by his attacks on us. We are alarmed by his attack on the Parliamentary Questions process, on civil servants who work to provide the answers and his own carelessness in failing to vet these answers.”