Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has spent nearly €300,000 in 32 official visits abroad since he took over as head of government in March 2013, information revealed in Parliament shows.
In all, the PM has been away officially 36 times, but two of the visits were to Libya with expenses covered by the Libyan government, while expenses for visits to Paris and Brussels in August and Milan in October are still being finalised.
The largest expenditure was on a visit to China in July of this year, where the Prime Minister's entourage spent €42,664 in seven days in which the PM attended the signing of a memorandum of understanding with China as well as participate at the Eco Forum Global Annual Conference.
It was also the visit in which the Prime Minister took representatives of selected media to cover the events there, leaving out The Malta Independent.
The second largest expenses was closer to home, and in just one day on 8 October this year the PM's office spent €33,780 to first take Dr Muscat to London for a seminar on the individual investors programme and later to Milan for a conference on employment organised by the Italian government. In this case, the OPM said that a private jet was used as commercial connections available would not have enabled the PM to be in London and Milan in time for the events scheduled.
In third place is the nine-day visit to New York and San Francisco in September this year, when €29,379 were spent. The cheapest visit was the €756 spent on a visit to London in October last year for a seminar on the citizenship programme.
In answer to a Parliamentary Question tabled by Nationalist MP Claudette Buttigieg, it was revealed that in all the OPM spent €289,193.78 on 32 official visits abroad.
In his answer, the PM said that in official visits he is accompanied by members of the Cabinet, members of the Labour parliamentary group, officials of his secretariat and other government officials. On a number of occasions he said he was also accompanied by his wife.
Bookings were made via Air Malta, Brittania Travel, Hamilton Travel, Tristar Travel and Untours Travel.
The full details can be found here.