The General Post Office is understaffed given the amount of mail it has to process every day. But it does the best it can under some of the most trying circumstances.

And while there have been some obvious glitches, the service overall does a good job in getting mail out to the public.

Postmaster General Cleveland Crichlow made these comments yesterday after he invited a Royal Gazette reporter to visit the Hamilton Post Office.

"It's correct that we have had our successes and our failures,'' he pointed out. "It is a totally manual system and we handle 22 million pieces of mail per year.

"Each of these has to be sorted into cubicles. We handle more mail than some countries that are three times our size.'' Focus on the Island's postal system surfaced last Thursday when Anthony Goodfellow, outgoing chairman of the International Companies Division of the Chamber of Commerce, criticised the Bermuda Post Office in a speech at the Princess Hotel.

He said that the Bermuda Post Office was not doing a good job when it came to prompt mail delivery despite meetings with Mr. Crichlow in 1995.

And yesterday Mr. Goodfellow did not back away from his position in the slightest.

He said: "The number of letters I get which take a week to get to me in Hamilton are countless and they are correctly addressed.

"I am not going to comment any further because I have heard nothing from Mr.

Crichlow and this will be a matter that will be discussed at the international companies meeting at the Chamber.

"I would really rather we let it die for the moment. I have made my remark.

Mr. Crichlow has countered and I think until we have had a chance to sit down in a week or two it's one of those things that is better left for the moment.'' Meanwhile, Mr. Crichlow said his staff handle a daily load of more than 40,000 letters which have to be sorted by hand. When allowances are made for vacations and sick leave he said there will be delays.

Moreover, whenever a letter carrier is out sick, the relief letter carrier, who may be unfamiliar with the route, will take a little longer to service that route.

Problems facing postal workers However, when it comes to international companies, Mr. Crichlow said many of them exist in buildings but have no signs or central post boxes or numbers.

Consequently, the letter carrier is left to walk up numerous flights of steps looking for the elusive office.

Other difficulties include the condominium developments, such as those at Duck's Puddle, Shelly Hall and Winton Hill. Instead of a central receptacle which would make it easier for the letter carrier to deliver the letters, each must be taken door to door.

"All this leads to frustration and they end up blaming me,'' Mr. Crichlow continued.

"We have told the developers to build boxes so that my postmen can deliver the mail to one central place when they build these buildings, but in the case of international companies many view their lobby space as too valuable so they don't want signs or numbers up.

"I am tired of all the complaints. No one ever talks about when we get things right, only when there is a problem.

"I have only 220 staff people and I have not even included parcels. We are just talking about letters.'' And Vernon Wears, superintendent in charge of delivery and maintenance at the GPO said businesses routinely send out all their letters during the first two weeks of the month.

"This creates a bottle neck for our manual system,'' he said. "I wish everyone was like Belco. They have a staggered mail system which works very well.

"We need to work hand in hand with the ICD to get a handle on this situation.

They came to talk to us in 1995 but it's 1997 now. We can definitely help each other but we need to work together. We want to give the service. That is our goal.''