Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb has defended her ministry's use of outside consultants while her opposite number blasted her for ignoring Parliament and telling the media.

Shadow Telecommunications Minister Allan Marshall first put a question to Ms Webb about consultants on November 27 expecting a reply in Parliament on December 6 - only to be disappointed.

Yesterday, Ms Webb went public and said her department had spent $3.9 million on consultants since the Progressive Labour Party took power but $2.7 million of that was paid to people already employed at the hand over - from Mr. Marshall's United Bermuda Party.

She said: "We are specifically responsible for $1.2 million. We have had 21 consultants since 1998. Most of which were inherited, they were already in place - mainly in the Government computer services department.

"Within Telecommunications we only had one full time consultant we kept on from the previous Government, Don Donavan, on about $150,000 a year. We also inherited a Canadian lawyer on retainer for about four months."

The Minister said that lawyer had been on a retainer of about $500,000 a year but her Government moved to hire lawyers on an ad hoc basis.

Other spending included consultants to make sure Government could deal with any computer glitches arising out of Y2K.

Ms Webb said: "That was a major part of the spending. We had also had a consultant to do a study on cell towers." She said that consultant comes every couple of months to make sure the towers are not putting out harmful emissions.

She said the department also had a few small contractors, saying: "We hired one consultant in e-commerce - Nigel Hickson. The rest were in the Government's computer and systems service departments which will soon be called the IT department. Most of them were there - hired by the former government. They were employed for network support or computer installation."

She said ad hoc hiring of part-time people for IT jobs was normal in computer services. She said about $200,000 spending on restructuring in IT.

The Minister said between 1994 and 1998 the previous Government had hired 31 consultants and paid $4.9 million for their services.

She said: "They had more consultants during a shorter period of time and spent more money."

Ms Webb said the previous Government also had accountants KPMG doing a report on customs services while rival accountancy firm Ernst and Young were already there doing some work for the former Government.

Both of these were kept on said Ms Webb who explained that her IT people could be hired to do work for any of the Government departments.

"Those two contracts were worth $2.7 million which was paid under us."

Mr. Marshall said he was shocked the Minister had ignored parliament to go public on the issue through the Press. He said he would reply to Ms Webb after he had seen the answers himself.

Ms Webb said she had spoken in the media because Mr. Marshall was refusing to ask the question in Parliament but was insisting on a written response which she said he would then selectively leak to the media.