Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

It cost ap­prox­i­mate­ly $220,000 for Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, his ad­vis­er and sup­port staff to vis­it In­dia for ten days last month. When asked about the cost yes­ter­day, Ma­haraj said it was about $220,000 for air­fare. He said: "My min­istry, the per­sons that went specif­i­cal­ly was my­self, my ad­vis­er, sup­port staff and the to­tal cost was, I think, about $220,000. "That's just for the air­fare be­tween Trinidad and In­dia." He said all in­ter­nal costs, ac­com­mo­da­tion, trans­port were paid for by the In­dia Gov­ern­ment.

He was re­spond­ing to ques­tions by the me­dia yes­ter­day af­ter the dis­tri­b­u­tion of ap­point­ments to mem­bers of the T&T Na­tion­al Road Safe­ty Coun­cil at his of­fice, In­ter­na­tion­al Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain. Among those who ac­com­pa­nied Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the State vis­it to In­dia were For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Em­manuel George and mem­bers of the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty. On re­turn to T&T, Ram­bachan told the me­dia: "It was a State vis­it at the in­vi­ta­tion of In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Man­mo­han Singh. "In a State vis­it, every­thing is paid for by the Gov­ern­ment of that coun­try."