Minister: No money for luxury holidays

 TREASURER Don Polye agrees with Prime Minister Peter O’Neill that there is no need for extravagant globetrotting by large delegations such as those at the World Cup in England.

Polye was asked by reporters to comment on the continuous overseas travel by department heads plus members of boards and management of state-owned enterprises.

He said when he went to Washington DC recently to officially take up the position of chairman of World Bank and International Monetary Fund, he only took with him essential staff.

“Have you seen me travelling,” he asked reporters,

“Were you there when I came back from Washington? Who else was there?

“Secretary Dairi Vele was there, the other was a first assistant secretary, and my first secretary was there to provide me with logistics. I needed them to give me the technical support.”

Polye said the same could not be said of the others.

“I don’t entertain these kinds of things. I don’t like them,” he said.

“We don’t have the money to afford luxury holidays. 

There’s no time for holidays in this country.”