Close to $95,000 has been spent on official travel by the Minister of Transport from January last year, it was reported in the House of Assembly on Friday.

But his colleague in charge of the Tourism and Telecommunications Department spent almost double that in less time.

The Ministers, Ewart Brown, and Renee Webb, provided their Ministry's official travel details in response to questions posed by the Opposition party.

Ms Webb took ten official trips from July15, 2003 to May 31 this year she said in her written responses. A cumulative total of 16 people accompanied her on the trips - some of them, like tourism officials David Dumont and Michael DeCouto, more than once.

Taxpayers were set back $171,316.54 for the travel which took in New York three times, Edinburgh, the UK Labour conference, a Caribbean Tourism Organisation conference in St. Thomas and a travel agents' conference in Miami.

Ms Webb also headed off to Qatar for a tourism conference there and twice to the UK on other tourism business.

In all she, and accompanying officials, spent $90,525.75 of public funds on airfare, $7,800 on per diems, $16,216.91 on food and entertainment and $3,030.60 on transport. An additional $3,349.61 was spent on phone calls and $12,590.38 was spent on "other" ways of doing the people's business while abroad.

The single most costly official trip came in at $37,599.10 for the Edinburgh Tattoo in Scotland from August 15 to 19. Entertainment for that trip, on which she was accompanied by four others, was on the Premier's tab, and airfares came in at $9,349.30.

The UK Labour Conference, from September 27 to October 2 last year, came in a close second at $35,033.38. Airfare for that trip was $21,241.50 for the four delegates from the Telecommunication and Tourism department.

Between January 1, 2003 and May 31, 2004, Dr. Brown took 14 official trips costing the taxpayer$94,362.97.

"On a number of Government Business trips I was accompanied by the Permanent Secretary, the Airport General Manager, Director of Civil Aviation, Mr. Larry Jacobs, Deanna Wade - Ministry of Tourism, Mr. Walter Lister - chairman Wedco, Senator Walter Roban and Mr. Francis Richardson - Director Designate," was his written answer when asked who accompanied him on each trip.

Dr. Brown's first trip was from January 29 to February 1, last year to Newark, New Jersey. That trip cost a total of $4,611.07, of which $1,364.65 was for airfare, $2,374.70 went on accommodations and $840 in per diems were spent.

Dr. Brown also travelled to Chicago, Florida, twice to Atlanta, Cuba, Canada and he went to Washington, D.C. five times and twice to Miami, Florida.

A two day Chicago trip - on which he was accompanied by three other people - was the costliest, at $13,108.96.

And the least costly trip was a two day June trip to Florida which set the taxpayer back $1,456.61.