PP gov't gets US$32,000 bill for private jet service that Manning used in 2010

The government of Trinidad and Tobago is saddled with a debt of US$32,080 dollars incurred by former Prime Minister Patrick Manning for use of an executive jet for him and four officials to travel to Mexico in February 2010.

A report in the NEWSDAY newspaper Sunday, citing invoices and cabinet notes, said the passengers who used the executive jet were Manning, his foreign minister at the time, Paula Gopee-Scoon, Kathleen Seenarine, Kirt St Bernard and Steve Daniel.

The full cost of the trip for the five of them was US$53,080, of which the Manning administration only paid US$20,000. The trip was between February 17 and 23, 2010.

The paper said the company sent documentations and invoices to the office of the Prime Minister last week asking for payment of the outstanding sum.
 
NEWSDAY said government sources, which it did not name, have said the government is "in the dark as to why the outstanding amount was not paid to the company". 

However it said the sources confirmed that government would have to pay the bill, the details of which are documented in Cabinet Minute #364, dated April 26, 2011:

The trip was for Manning and his delegation to attend the First Caricom-Mexico Summit, the XXI Summit of the Rio Group and the II Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean on Integration and Development and related Meetings in Cancun Mexico.

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar chartered a Caribbean Airlines jet for US$85,000 to travel to Brazil last month with a delegation of government officials and private business leaders, who paid their own way. The average cost per person for the delegation of 40 was just over US$2,000 per person with the profits going back to the national carrier.

The opposition PNM complained bitterly about the cost. In the case of the Manning trip, which was one of many in which he used private jets, the cost to a foreign company was more than US$10,000 per person.