US Health Secretary Tom Price has resigned over the use of expensive private planes for official business.<\/p>\n
He previously apologised after making 26 private flights since May at a cost of $400,000 (\u00a3300,000) to taxpayers.<\/p>\n
Government officials, except those dealing with national security matters, are required to take commercial flights for work related travel.<\/p>\n
Three other members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet are under scrutiny for using private planes while working.<\/p>\n
A White House statement said President Trump had accepted Mr Price’s resignation, adding that Don J Wright had been designated as acting health secretary. Mr Wright is currently deputy assistant secretary for health.<\/p>\n
In his letter of resignation,\u00a0seen by the New York Times,\u00a0Mr Price said he regretted that “recent events have created a distraction” from the work of the health department.<\/p>\n
An investigation by the political news website\u00a0Politico\u00a0found that Mr Price’s travels had cost more than $1m (\u00a3750,000).<\/p>\n
As well as the $400,000 for private flights, that figure includes the cost of military aircraft used for Mr Price’s trips abroad, Politico added.<\/p>\n
President Trump had earlier said he was “not happy” with the expense.<\/p>\n
Mr Price had promised to repay the cost of his seats on private flights, saying: “The taxpayers won’t pay a dime for my seat on those planes.”<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Health Secretary Tom Price has resigned over the use of expensive private planes for official business. He previously apologised after making 26 private flights since May at a cost of $400,000 (\u00a3300,000) to taxpayers. Government officials, except those dealing with national security matters, are required to take commercial flights for work related travel. Three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[107],"tags":[11476,109,594],"yoast_head":"\n