provided by PTB at this year's Jazz Festival.

Hitting back at angry comments from Jazz Festival producer Lee Heiman that the local bus service needed to "step it up'', Herman Basden charged that the producer may not have understood the extent of what he paid for.

Mr. Heiman expressed disappointment and displeasure with PTB, claiming that it was too concerned about money and unreceptive to making deals.

"I think he was just under the wrong perception,'' Mr. Basden told The Royal Gazette yesterday. "We had to schedule on extra staff, he might not have realised, to facilitate the extra bus service he required.

"We had to have a mechanic on, in case a bus broke down it could be attended to right away. It was clear to us from the outset that we had to do this right.

"We fully realised that Bermuda was being showcased with this Jazz Festival and we had to ensure we had ourselves fully covered.

"We did not want to embarrass ourselves and we recognised we had to do Bermuda proud.'' "In addition to the mechanic we had a dispatcher and supervisors,'' he added.

"We wanted things to run smoothly and from what I hear back from my supervisors, everything went off very well.

"We specifically scheduled on some of our most experienced staff. We had dispatchers who have years of experience in handling crowds and a mechanic who we knew would be quick and thorough if any problem arose.

"It seems to me that Mr. Heiman was expecting us to just kick in a few free buses. Maybe that's how he does business in New York, but we simply stuck to the charter tariffs. That's what we charge everyone, even locals.'' Mr. Basden conceded that he was surprised to learn of Mr. Heiman's negative feelings.

"I didn't have a clue he wasn't happy,'' he said. "He was right outside my office yesterday (Monday) morning and never even tried to talk to me. If he was unhappy, I would have thought he would have insisted on talking to the director.'' In fact, Mr. Basden said he believed PTB had been quite accommodating in their dealings with Mr. Heiman.

"Firstly, it was clear from the outset when he ordered the buses that he didn't want the prices he had last year,'' Mr. Basden said, "so we worked along with him and ensured he didn't go over budget. But I think what he was hinting at was free buses.''