Nine days on, Immigration Minister David Burch has re-issued his threat to fire Opposition MP Bob Richard's company from an immigration contract but has yet to say when a decision would be reached.

The row erupted after Mr. Richards likened the Government's ID card scheme to smacking "very heavily of Nazi Germany" and being "an offence to right-thinking people".

Sen. Burch then revealed that Bermuda Information Technology Systems Ltd. (BITS), of which Mr. Richards is a director and president, was involved in the project and vowed to fire him if it would not jeopardise the project for not coming clean on his involvement.

But asked when a decision would be made Sen. Burch said he had no idea as the person who will do the investigation is on leave.

Mr. Richards has said the most BITS can gain from the four-year contract, which involves a US partner, is $300,000 before overheads.

Sen. Burch told The Royal Gazette: "He's obviously not a very good businessman, his company has been paid $3 million, he is telling us that he has to pay $2.7 million to whoever his partner is."

The Minister said in a Senate statement that the production of the ID cards, which will replace work permits, was the culmination of a four-year phased project costing $11.7 million and was in response to business requests for wallet-sized work permits which would be handier to present at the airport.

He said the cards would be tested next month but a roll-out probably wouldn't start until the first quarter of next year.

Sen. Burch said Britain had launched ID cards for its immigrant population this week while the Cayman Islands was even finger-printing work permit holders for their ID cards.

"So rather than being burdensome work permit cards are in response to an industry request."