Government has collected a total of $649.8 million in health surcharge from the period 2006 to May 31, 2009.

Minister in the Ministry of Health Wesley George disclosed this yesterday in response to a question on the Order Paper from Opposition Senator Lyndira Oudit.

George said this money was deposited into the Consolidated Fund in which funding is dispersed to health care.

He said this amount made up a fraction of the monies allocated to the Health Ministry.

He pointed out that in 2008, $195.7 million was collected in health surcharge and the budgetary allocation for 2008-2009 was some $3.6 billion to the Ministry of Health.

And Government spent over $100 million to charter the Carnival Victory and the Caribbean Princess cruise ships for the Fifth Summit of the Americas in April this year, Minister in the Ministry of Finance Mariano Browne, said yesterday in the Senate.

Browne said US$10,143,405 was spent to charter the Carnival Victory while US$10,934,690 was spent to charter the Caribbean Princess.

In addition, he said some US$150,000 was paid to a private firm, Landry and Klin,e to provide management services for both vessels bringing the total cost expended to US$21,228,095.

’It should be noted that the cost of chartering the cruise ships has been partly offset by the income derived from participants who were accommodated on the cruise ship during the pre-summit event and summit. In addition, income was also derived from the post-summit cruises,’ said Browne.

He said the revenue from accommodation on the cruise ship amounted to US$1,527,430; revenue from onboard functions US$15,335; and revenue from post-summit cruises US$1,471,079 bringing this to a total of US$3,038,844.

Browne said this meant that the net charter of the two cruise ships amounted to US$18,214,251 (TT$109,285,506).