As some of you may have seen, the Welsh Government procurement card data was published in September and it made for some frustrating reading.

The data shows that spending on these cards has almost doubled from £800,000 to £1,500,000.

There were multiple examples of spending that seems incredibly hard to justify.

One such example was a food bill for Zou Zou’s, an incredibly expensive restaurant in New York.

The final bill for the food came to an astonishing £16,000 which was justified because it was a St David’s Day event.

However, upon closer inspection, the menu consisted of some incredibly expensive dishes. Lobster at $51, salads at $29 and French fries for $12 were just some of the items on this exclusive menu.

Not only does this appear to be incredibly extravagant spending, none of this strikes me as particularly Welsh.

Now I firmly believe that we need to be showing Wales off to the world which involves hosting events and inviting investors, and St David’s Day is a great opportunity to do that.

I also accept that this may come at a cost, but we need to ensure that money is spent wisely.

This isn’t the only example of seemingly reckless spending. Over £2,300 was spent in an Irish Bar in New York when there is a Welsh bar owned by Welsh people in the same city.

Surely this would have been a better way to show off what Wales has to offer.

Other spending on these cards includes purchases from websites that sell Fusball machines and GoPros.

At the end of the day, this is taxpayer’s money, and we need to be ensuring that they get the best value for money.

The Welsh Government must audit this spending and implement new guidelines to avoid this kind of embarrassment in the future and ensure that every penny that is spent provides the taxpayer with value for money.