After four days of trash pile-ups, a Government Minister said the garbage schedule was back on track today.

And of Works and Engineering Minister Alex Scott dismissed suggestions that the two-day garbage pick-up schedule was too much for garbage collectors to handle.

He said that the two-day-a-week schedule had proved successful since it was reintroduced in 1998 and was not a "burden" on the workers.

And he repeated that the Government overtime ban was the sole reason for trash not being picked up.

"I haven't heard any complaints," he said. "In fact the two day pick-up is certainly not a problem. To relate the two would be mischievous. There has been an overtime ban put in place since September 11, and even Ray Charles can see that beyond that there is nothing to it."

A ban on non-essential overtime put in place to cut back on Government expenses after September 11, and an extra amount of waste this time of year contributed to a backlog of trash this week, the Minister said.

And the Minister also noted there were workers who had called in sick, which resulted in a manpower shortage.

But he added that he and Bermuda Industrial Union president Derrick Burgess went to great pains to ensure that any worker complaints were defused.

He said: "These things happen from time to time. I think that we have met the challenge."