Local communications company RF Communications has defended itself from charges of shoddy work in connection with last year's jazz festival.

The company came in for criticism in an "Open Letter to Bermuda" by promoter Lee Heiman, which is currently being circulated on the Internet and printed in full on Page 31.

Mr. Heiman, whose New York company Track Entertainment produces and promotes the yearly festival for the Department of Tourism, cancelled this year's show because of the air travel shut down following the September 11 attacks on the US.

His open letter criticises a number of local individuals and businesses, as well as the Departments of Tourism and Immigration and details incidents following the announcement of the cancellation.

Mr. Heiman says that Track was asked to use a local agent to secure work permits for the festival by the Immigration Department and the Tourism Department recommended RF Communications, headed by Reece Furbert, for the job in 2000.

He adds, "we were forced to utilise his video documentation services at an additional expense of $5,000.

RF Communications delivered unedited and unprofessional looking tapes to Track nearly a month after the event."

When contacted, Mr. Furbert questioned why the matter was being brought up a year later. "We're hearing about this a year later and I wonder if it's just being added for effect," he told The Royal Gazette.

He said Track Entertainment asked for raw footage to be shot of the making of the 2000 festival as well as some of the performances and that is what they delivered. "The standard of work was dictated by them," he added. "What I mean, is they didn't hire a director - they asked for raw footage. . . We had no direction in terms of the way it was going to be used."

Musician Tony Brannon, one of the Tourism minister's most vocal critics, met with Mr. Heiman shortly before he left the Island.

"David Allen comes in and says 'this is the firm you're going to hire. . . you will be hiring RF Communications' and he's told this is what you have to pay them. And when it comes down to the fact that they (RF Communications) happened to be the political advertising machinery for the Progressive Labour Party - that stinks."