Snail mail is damaging Bermuda's international business reputation and could lead to job cuts at the Post Office due to plummeting profits, Shadow Finance Minister Grant Gibbons warned yesterday.

And Dr. Gibbons said Minister of Finance Eugene Cox -- who admitted the delivery of overseas mail was not up to scratch -- had to act to improve the service.

Dr. Gibbons added: "It's interesting to hear what the Minister thinks is acceptable and what is actually happening.'' He was speaking after getting written answers on how long it takes the Island to get air mail from both the UK and US.

Mr. Cox said air mail from the US to Bermuda took between three to eight days while air mail from the UK took an average of two to six days to arrive.

And he wrote: "An elapsed time of three days would be acceptable for both destinations.'' In response to Dr. Gibbons, Mr. Cox said Bermuda had no direct control over overseas postal services.

But he added that the Bermuda Post Office would continue to meet with the US Postal Service, petition the Universal Postal Union and consult with the carriers used by the US Postal Service to ferry mail.

But Dr. Gibbons said: "I think the average times stated understates the delays which are taking place.'' And he added he had recently had two pieces of mail from the US which took 13 and 17 days respectively to be delivered.

Dr. Gibbons said: "A lot of people, whether business or individuals, are having difficulty with the time it takes to get mail from the US to Bermuda.

"There is still a lot of time-sensitive material which comes by air mail.

"And, if you have a sensitive document which you have to pay $30 to get a courier service to handle, that's bad.

"It also reflects very badly on Bermuda from a jurisdictional point of view that it takes that long to get mail here.

"It probably doesn't take three weeks to get mail from the UK to the US, so the problem seems to be with the US/Bermuda links.'' Dr. Gibbons added: "I'm also concerned about the longer-term viability of the Post Office. If people don't think they'll get mail in time, they will use other carriers.'' He pointed out that conventional postal services were already under threat from new technology like e-mail, while the Post Office had to be subsidised by more than $1 million this year alone.

Dr. Gibbons said: "There is a responsibility on the part of the Minister of Finance to get this sorted out. It's not sufficient to set up meetings.

"They need someone who is specifically responsible at New York's JFK airport to make sure Bermuda-addressed mail gets on the appropriate plane or maybe they need to make special arrangements with the US Postal Service.

"The Minister needs to take this up aggressively and, unless they start to address this problem, they're going to have to start to wind down jobs at the Post Office.'' Dr. Gibbons added that the Post Office subsidy had gone down on the previous two years, but that was because there was an increase in rates scheduled for later this year.

But he said: "Increasing costs for using the Post Office and decreasing value because of the time it takes is not improving things.

"That means -- in the longer run -- the Post Office is going to lose business because of delays and poor value for money, as well as other means of communication.''