Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley last night demanded to know how Government's faith-based tourism initiative clocked up more than $27,000 expenses on business lunches in a year.

Andre Curtis revealed the figure earlier this week as he attempted to justify why he is contracted to receive hundreds of thousands of taxpayers money to run the faith-based scheme.

Explaining how $200,000 was spent on the project last year, Mr. Curtis presented reporters at a press conference with a print-out of answers to Parliamentary questions posed by Mr. Dunkley to Premier and Tourism Minister Ewart Brown in June.

The document, which the Premier's Press Secretary says should not be considered official, stated that, in 2006-07, $27,483 was spent on business lunches, $2,976 on business trips, and a further $229,500 on five church-based projects.

No explanation was offered for why the total figure exceeded $200,000 by nearly $60,000, and Mr. Curtis refused to entertain questions on the matter from journalists.

Mr. Curtis told the press conference these answers had already been sent to the Opposition, but Mr. Dunkley insists he has never received anything.

After being faxed a copy by The Royal Gazette, Mr. Dunkley said: "$27,000? It's a lot of lunches. We need to know why they spent that."

The answer sheet also revealed that $200,000 was going on faith-based tourism salaries for 2007-08.

On this point, Mr. Dunkley said: "That's higher than Cabinet Ministers get for that type of expenditure. Even if you put somebody else in there (as well as Mr. Curtis), it's expensive. What type of things are we getting for that?

"This is Government's faith-based tourism initiative. This is taxpayers' money. We haven't seen any programmes. When questioned, Mr. Curtis got very defensive. He still didn't come up with anything concrete to say."

Mr. Dunkley's questions were sent to the Premier on June 27. However, because the Parliamentary session ended just two days later, the Premier was under no obligation to provide answers.

The Premier has previously stated he will answer Mr. Dunkley's questions in accordance with the Parliamentary process. Mr. Dunkley says he has understood this to mean the questions will not be answered until after the summer, when the next Parliamentary session has reopened and they have been resubmitted.

Appearing to cast doubt over the document presented by Mr. Curtis to the press, the Premier's Press Secretary Glenn Jones said last night: "It would be unwise to consider whatever document you have as the Premier's answers to Parliamentary questions. Unless the document came from an Opposition MP or the Clerk to the Legislature or the Premier himself, the document should not be considered official."

Mr. Curtis is contracted to receive $400,000 for running faith-based tourism this year, on top of the $200,000 he was given for 2006-07. The money is paid directly to his company Harvest Investment Holdings.

He runs Dr. Brown's constituency in Warwick South Central, but both deny faith-based tourism is being used as a means of getting cash to him as a thank you gesture.

Calling for the Premier to speak on the subject, Mr. Dunkley, who is also Shadow Tourism Minister, continued: "It's time for the speculation to stop. I don't believe Mr. Curtis is taken very seriously by anyone in the community. This whole initiative is falling apart. "It started out in good faith. I think the only thing to be done is for the Premier to come out and a give a full explanation."

Former Opposition Leader Wayne Furbert has repeatedly asked how the money is being spent, but Mr. Curtis has refused to answer questions. He held the press conference on Monday, but told reporters he would not be fielding questions because his statement would cover all the relevant points. He then gave a complicated explanation as to how the money was accounted for and produced a list of ten events he said he had lined up for 2007-08. He provided very brief details of the events.

Mr. Curtis was unavailable for comment last night.