A SENIOR official of the University of the West Indies (UWI) has collected a reimbursement cheque from a popular travel agency for close to $200,000.

A source within the Ministry of Tertiary Education said UWI principal Dr. Bhoe Tewarie should try to get some answers as to how one of the university’s top officials could get a hefty reimbursement for travel and accommodation that was already paid for by the ministry.

“The official from UWI planned all his travel and itinerary through the travel agency, and the bill came up to close to a quarter million dollars,” the insider stated.

“Everything was approved and paid for by the ministry. But the official from UWI did not stick to the itinerary.

“As such, there was a large refund to be paid and that was paid directly to the UWI employee.”

However, checks within the industry revealed there was a pattern emerging with travel packages all State-funded travel.

“This goes very, very deep,” one travel agency source confided under condition of anonymity.

“Do not think for a minute we are talking about Government employees on the lower end; we are talking about people who sit in the highest offices of the land.

“There are ministries that are approving travel for people employed as consultants, not regular employees, although there are State employees cashing in on this travel racket.

“People are applying to attend seminars all over the world, but they are only going as far as New York, spend a couple of weeks with their family, and when they return to Trinidad, claim they had a family emergency or they had to cancel the seminar for some reason.

“But everything was paid for in advance by the various ministries, be it through the Ministry of the Attorney General of the Ministry of Housing, but the reimbursement cheques are not going back to the ministries, but to the individuals in whose names the bookings and other travel arrangements were made.

“Probably the greatest abuse of this system was in the energy sector.

“There is a high-paid consultant in the energy sector who is cashing in big with contracts in the oil industry, but all his travel is paid for by the State as he has a top job as a consultant.

“People pay a high price for his advice on energy matters. He is travelling for free and sucking the country dry of our oil dollars.”