Quote:
Originally Posted by HOZ
Ok, it was listed as "incidentals" but what else could it be?
But 40K on airfare alone seems a tad high..... 
Government expense reports say Margaret Biggs, president of the Canadian International Development Agency, paid $13,856.46 just for airfare to the Ghana conference last September. Accommodation cost $1,750.92.
The records indicate Biggs was in Ghana from Aug. 28 to Sept. 5 for a meeting scheduled Sept. 2-4. She also visited field projects, says an emailed response from agency spokeswoman Jo-Ann Purcell.
Another $805.44 was claimed for expenses described only as "other." Purcell clarified that $475 of that total was for medical shots, while another $330.44 was for "incidentals." |
I often wonder why people do reporting like this. I assume it is to bring to light the wasteful spending of our government bureaucrats when they should have not been so wasteful. However in 20 mins, I have figured out that I don't mind the amount that was spent, since I couldn't find anything that was significantly cheaper.
http://www.hotels.com.gh/
I only considered hotels on that link that listed in US dollars, but hotel cost in Ghana for a Single Room in a 3 or 4 star hotel - $100-250 per night. Assuming they didn't share rooms, that puts the potential bill for 3 people for 7 days at $2,100 to $5,250. So I am guessing they stayed in a 2 star hotel. Certainly not an 'extravagance' I would fault anyone for.
I am quite happy with
$1,750.92.
As for Airfare, I could not locate any flights from Ottawa to Ghana on any site, so I searched for flights to Lagos ( in Nigeria, right beside Ghana), and there was a very limited choice, but I found some on
Cheap Airfare | Cheap Flights from Jan 30 to Feb 6 the price for a flight for a single person business class is
$10127.00 ( CDN I assume). There was no first class available, and that price does not include taxes etc So if you assume that you could actually find a flight to Ghana, that it would be somewhere in that ballpark (give or take) of $31,000 for 3 people. Unless they needed to fly to Lagos with a major carrier then book a small charter to get to Ghana, in which case I would consider the 40k a pretty resonable price.
Edit: After review that airfare site once more, the final airfare is somewhere between $11031.65 and $11857.45 per person when you factor in taxes. Putting the final price tag almost squarely on $35,000 for airfare.
Bottom line is, if someone from CIDA decided she needed to go to Ghana, this is pretty much the bill that should be expected.