US pays for stars' luxury travel

The intense emotion of Shakespeare could strike a chord with soldiers

US taxpayers wrongly paid thousands of dollars for stars to fly first-class to rally US troops, a report has revealed.

The Department of Defense paid $48,000 (£27,000) too much for upgrades for seven celebrity trips from 2000-02, the General Accounting Office (GAO) said.

The stars who got travel upgrades for trips to entertain troops in the Middle East and the US were not named.

But the GAO, an arm of the US Congress that examines how government spends its money, identified "improper" expenses.

Controls

The Department of Defense pays some - but not all - expenses for celebrity troop trips. They do not foot the bill for some airline upgrades.

They should have been paid by the United Service Organizations (USO), which organises the trips.

The GAO blamed the lack of "effective financial and management controls" rather than any deliberate wrongdoing.

On one trip, eight first class tickets were bought for $16,658 (£9,000) to fly around the US without authorisation. The tickets would have cost $1,680 (£911) in coach class.

And seven business-class tickets costing $13,488 (£7,300) - worth $1,400 (£760) in coach class - were also bought without authorisation.

Questionable

Other "improper" expenses were paid for alcohol, meals and hotels - but these amounted to less than $400 (£217).

"Questionable" expenses worth $3,000 (£1,630) - for limousines and airport VIP lounges - were also identified.

And $344,000 (£187,000) production costs paid to MTV for a concert featuring Jennifer Lopez were deemed "unsupported" because of a lack of documents to back the expenses up.

But the USO says it has now provided proof of the expenses and all sides now regard them as legitimate.

The organisation also says a new management team has made changes to tighten its accounting procedures.