handle on what the Base take-over has cost to date, the Opposition has charged.

Opposition Leader Mr. Frederick Wade said he was "a bit astounded'' to read in Saturday's The Royal Gazette that Dr. Gibbons could not provide a figure on how much the Base transition team has spent.

"There should be a running balance,'' Mr. Wade said. "I was astounded that the Minister was keeping so loose a check that he didn't know how much he had spent to date.'' Dr. Gibbons said last week that he spoke to his officials about providing The Royal Gazette with figures on Base take-over costs to date, but that officials were extremely busy with work related to the takeover and could not immediately provide the information requested.

The Gazette reported that major contracts alone totalled $1.85 million and that the $2 million Finance Minister the Hon. David Saul set aside in the last Budget for the Base take-over had been spent. Dr. Saul said he needed to get a firmer grip on next year's costs before he could set his 1995 Budget.

Mr. Wade said he was concerned that a spending figure was not readily available. "That didn't speak to me of a Minister who had a handle on things,'' he said. "They accuse us of not being able to manage money.'' But Dr. Gibbons said it was not a question of not keeping track of how much was spent. "Frankly, we do have a fairly clear sense of what we've spent,'' he said. "But at this point, with a lot of tender evaluations and other things going on, we weren't in a position to declare that.

"We are presumably beyond the $2 million amount at this point, but certainly when that amount was set aside back at the beginning of the year, there was not as full an understanding as we have now of the complexity of some of the issues.'' Dr. Gibbons said he would provide the figure as soon as he had time to meet with the appropriate officials.

Mr. Wade said he would also like to hear more about the revenue side of the Base take-over and the money Government could earn from leases, land taxes and other sources.

"We're investigating that from our point of view,'' he said. "I don't think we should frighten Bermudians into believing it's all outgoing, and there's no income.'' Dr. Gibbons has said that Government plans to use creative cost recovery methods at the Airport, and turning a profit on the operation is not out of the question.

"That would be our goal,'' he said. "We're extremely mindful that we would need to do our best to balance costs and expenditures with revenues. We're very actively exploring a number of areas right now.'' An agreement on air traffic control that Bermuda is close to signing with the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States has a cost recovery aspect, he said.