Bank governor splurges £91,000 on ‘secure’ limo
When George Osborne appointed Mark Carney as governor of the Bank of england, the Chancellor agreed to let him serve only five years instead of the usual eight, and pay him an £874,000 salary, including a £250,000 housing allowance.
On top of that, the Canadian banker also received a relocation budget of £200,000 to pay for flights, temporary accommodation and shipping for his family and furniture. This, however, is not the end of the perks made available to the holder of the City of London’s most prestigious job. According to figures disclosed by the Bank, Carney spent almost £100,000 on an official car during his first year and £ 67,000 on f oreign t r avel.
Between July 2013 and June this year, the 49-year-old governor spent £91,113 on his ‘secure car’, which is specially protected so that telephone calls made from the vehicle cannot be intercepted.
Carney carried out foreign trips costing a total of £67,456 to a string of destinations including his native Canada, the U.S., Australia, Russia, Switzerland and Germany. he also spent £3,084 on travelling within the UK.
Carney promised a more transparent Bank of england when he was appointed last year and announced yesterday that the Bank would provide instant information about its interest-rate discussions and overhaul the way it reveals its thinking on monetary policy.
Despite all the efforts of the Bank to keep Carney happy, there is one member of his entourage who is not entirely enamoured of his new surroundings in Blighty: the family cat.
In July, I reported that Carney was apprehended by security officials at Ottawa airport en route to heathrow after trying to take contraband goods onto the plane in his hand luggage.
Carney had stocked up with Friskies, his cat’s ‘favourite’ food, because the pet could not stomach the brands available on this side of the Atlantic.
however, it is illegal to bring meat and dairy products into the UK from outside the EU and Carney could have faced prosecution.
Of the £91,113 spent on his car, a spokesman tells me: ‘The governors of the Bank of england require the regular use of secure cars in order to travel to meetings with highly market-sensitive materials.’