Shadow Public Works Minister Patricia Gordon-Pamplin last night asked Premier Paula Cox to name the Cabinet consultants who have had their services axed after “unnecessarily feeding at the trough”.The Opposition MP applauded the fact that the Cabinet Office budget for consultants has been slashed by 36 percent to $744,000 in the coming financial year.The Premier earlier told the House of Assembly she had got rid of “unnecessary consultants”.Mrs Gordon-Pamplin said: “My concern is: who has been cut out? I think it would be interesting to understand who has been unnecessarily feeding at the trough. It would be wonderful to know exactly who was cut out.”Opposition leader Kim Swan referred to the allocation of $1.6 million for the professional services of consultants two years ago.He said during yesterday’s three-hour Budget debate on the Cabinet Office that one of the concerns that existed then was “whether it was a service or a self-service gas station”.“That has been halved,” Mr Swan noted, adding that an outline of what some of the consultants did would be helpful.Shadow Education Minister Grant Gibbons said: “We want to give credit where credit is due. It has been halved from two years ago, when it was in excess of $1.6 million.”He said he’d like more of a breakdown on how the 2011/12 allocation for professional services was to be spent, especially with regard to how much of the cash would go on lobbyist fees in Washington DC.The Premier said at the start of the debate that there was a $423,000 reduction in the allocation for Cabinet consultants for 2011/12.“The simple explanation is that I have cut out unnecessary consultants to the Cabinet Office,” she said, adding that she’d renegotiated the contracts of others to ensure value for money.The time allocated for yesterday’s debate ended before Ms Cox was able to provide answers to the Opposition. It wasn’t possible to get comment from her afterwards.Government set aside $1.1 million for Cabinet consultants for this fiscal year, which ends on March 31, but has since revised the estimate to $1.4 million.According to answers to Parliamentary Questions tabled in the House of Assembly last February, the three highest paid local consultants working for Cabinet were Eudora Browne Zuill, Rolfe Commissiong and Marc Bean.Ms Zuill’s $103,800-a-year contract to research and draft policy statements ended on December 31.Mr Commissiong’s $103,200-a-year contract to present the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI), work on the Young Black Male Study and establish a visa waiver assistance programme, also expired last year.He was re-hired for six months, it was revealed in November, to help put in place the Mincy Report recommendations on young black Bermudian males.Government MP Mr Bean’s $92,400-a-year contract for representing Bermuda at Caricom meetings, reviewing the Bermuda Independence Commission and assisting with BRRI ended in November.Useful website: www.gov.bm