Taxpayers have paid $471,087 for consultants to the Ministry of Transport since April last year.The news came on Friday in answers to Parliamentary Questions tabled by Shadow Minister for Transport Patricia Gordon-Pamplin.There were four foreign consultants in the list provided by former Minister of Transport Derrick Burgess.The total paid out in remuneration was $431,138 while the bill for travel, accommodation and meals came to $39,949.Among the payments listed were $73,770.50 to GMD Consulting Ltd for project management and IT support for the Transport Control Department's IT system. Government Senator David Burt is the majority shareholder of GMD.Maintenance of the department's IT system also accounted for payments to Bermuda Information Technology Systems ($57,993) and Rippe and Kingston of Cincinnati, Ohio ($13,750).Meanwhile, ongoing maintenance of the Electronic Vehicle Registration System done by Transcore Ltd of Aubrey, Texas, accounted for a further $75,775.There were also payments for four consultants to the Department of Civil Aviation: Patrick Doolan, Raine Pennanen, Horace Tucker and Donald Gray.Two consultants were paid in relation to Marine and Ports: Ian Brooks, and Stephen Robinson.There were one each for Public Transport (Delroy O'Brien) and Airport Operations (Donald Clark.)The largest figure was for Mr Doolan, who was remunerated to the tune of $82,503 and given $25,013 for travel, accommodation and meals.His role was that of Airworthiness Manager, European Region, for the Department of Civil Aviation's satellite office in London.Transcore was given the next largest amount of money, followed by GMD Consulting.Asked for a comment, Ms Gordon-Pamplin replied: “The questions are standard questions that are asked of ministries to determine whether there is inordinate spending on consultants, given budgetary constraints.”She added: “I have not digested the responses yet, but the questions had been asked in March and the responses were only made available on Friday.”Mr Burgess appeared to have issued the written reply before stepping down from his post on June 6 after reports of a physical alternation with fellow Cabinet Minister Michael Scott.The paperwork indicates that the answers had been due 11 weeks earlier, on March 23.The issue of transport consultants hit the headlines in August 2011 when then-Transport Minister Terry Lister said former PLP Chairman Anthony Santucci had been hired as a TCD consultant.Premier Paula Cox and the Cabinet Secretary later denied Mr Lister's statement, saying there had been no submission to an internal review committee, which the Premier set up to vet all Government staff appointments, including consultants, to ensure value for money and combat conflicts of interest.There was no mention of Mr Santucci in the list of consultants provided by his successor in the role.