was revealed that his company had been landed with a $1.4 million bill it never knew existed.

Cable and Wireless realised that, due to an oversight, Telco had not been properly charged over previous years for calls made using AT&T Calling Cards.

So C&W totted up the considerable total, explained the situation to Telco in the nicest possible terms and sent the company the company a bill for $1.4 million.

It should have been enough to make Telco management and shareholders weep, but Mr. Pacheco told the Business Diary : "We checked our records and accepted that we did owe the money. What can I say? We owed the amount and paid up.

"It was an oversight on their part. When a person recognises they have made an error an adjustment has to be made and that's what happened.'' Without the charge, Telco would have made a profit of over $10 million for fiscal 1993, which would have been its best performance since 1990. As it was, the company still turned in a healthy, recession-beating profit of $8.67 million.

* * * BUC Bermuda's other leading utilities company, Belco, is facing a financial dilemma of a different sort following severe cutbacks locally by the US and Canadian armed forces.

Consumption at the Canadian Base for the first five months of 1993 was 14 percent less than for the same period in 1992.

The company estimates that it will lose approximately $600,000 in annual revenue once the Base shuts down.

Demand at the US Naval Air Station in St. David's fell by nearly five percent over the same period.

* * * BUC A Philippine senate panel has accused the local subsidiary of soft drinks giant Pepsico of gross negligence after a bottle top lottery ended in chaos.

Hundreds of people who thought they had won one million pesos ($40,000) rioted outside Pepsi's Manila plant last year after the company withdrew the winning number and refused to pay cash prizes.

Several people were injured after the crowd threw bottles and blocks of cement at Pepsi's security guards.

Pepsi Cola Products Philippines Inc had run a "Numbers Fever'' promotion scheme where a three-number combination would earn the owner a cash prize of up to one million pesos ($40,000).

But PCPPI was forced to withdraw number 349 on May 25, 1992 when it discovered that several bottle caps were released without the necessary security codes and the company failed to warn consumers it was pulling out the number.

"PCPPI-Pepsico may be faulted for gross negligence by its failure to exercise that degree of due diligence in assuring that its `Numbers Fever' promotion scheme is conducted scrupulously and devoid of mistakes,'' the senate report said.

"It may be found liable of misleading or deceptive advertising by changing the rules of the game,'' the 11-page report of the trade panel added.

It also cited the company for "failure to disclose to the consuming public in clear and unmistakable terms the importance and relevance of the security codes to the winning process.'' Charges were filed last year by the government against PCPPI, but the case was settled after the company paid 150,000 pesos ($6,000).

* * * FLY The US Department of Transportation has given American Airlines a route from Philadelphia to London's Heathrow Airport.

AA has applied for arrival and departure slots at Heathrow, the most popular airport in London for high-fare paying business travellers.

The roundtrip flight would begin and end at American's hub in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, with a stop in Philadelphia.

American's request to operate nonstop service between Raleigh-Durham and London remains pending with the Transportation Department.