We are more than a little bit surprised by Prime Minister Simpson Miller's response to the report on Sunday about the cost of foreign travels and whether others in the Office of the Prime Minister had breached the rules regarding per diem allowances.

It is hardly our business, or the business of anyone else, that Mrs. Simpson Miller's husband has given her a credit card to use on her travels, except if she uses that credit card to conduct business on behalf of Jamaica. In that regard, the rules for public officials is that they should first have permission from the Ministry of Finance for the transaction if they expect reimbursement from the national treasury.

There are two points, therefore, to which we would have expected the Prime Minister or her office to respond, if they had questions or concerns about the fairness of the report. The first would be a defence of the appropriateness of Mrs Simpson Miller's travels and the size of her delegations.

Indeed, there is hardly anyone with an even rudimentary understanding of global governance and international relations who would not expect our Prime Minister to travel on behalf of the country. Neither do we expect the leader of the Government or the head of state to travel in the most rudimentary fashion or to stay in dumps while abroad. And while we do not expect our leaders to splurge and be extravagant, there is a decorum that goes with the office. We also know that a decision for a leader's accommodation may not be entirely in his or her hands, given a host country's concern for the security and safety of guests. These issues will have a bearing on the cost of official travel.

We do not, in that context, presume that our Prime Minister, or any other public official, will travel on whim or undertake trips at the public's expense for which there is no value to the country, although an assessment of the return is not always easy. Rather than whine about perceived attacks, we would have hoped that the PM would take the public into her confidence with an explanation of her travels and her perspective of the benefits derived therefrom. Nor should it be a big thing to say why she travels with the staff with which she does.

Indeed, the Prime Minister should understand that in her job she, like other leaders, is subject to extraordinary scrutiny. It goes with the territory, which she sought and gained.

There is something else, which should perhaps command her attention; this penchant of governments to establish rules that are apparently designed to be broken - like the per diem guidelines promulgated by the Finance Ministry.

The rules, for instance, say that the Prime Minister, on a trip to North America, in the normal scheme of things, is entitled to a per diem of US$410 a day to cover meals and accommodation. There has to be special dispensation to vary this. In Western Europe the allowance is US$430 a day.

We suspect that it would take some doing, say in London, to find a hotel room at that rate that has the quality and secondly the security arrangements that would make the British Government comfortable about hosting our Prime Minister. The rules make rule breakers of our officials.

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