Three Government ministries hired 130 consultants between them in less than two years.

The Ministry of Finance alone used 66 consultants from May 1, 2008 to January 31 this year, according to figures released in Parliament on Friday; the Ministry of Health employed 55, and the Ministry of Education nine.

Ministers Paula Cox, Walter Roban and Elvin James provided an extensive breakdown showing all the experts their ministries have brought in, and the amount they were paid.

Many of the highest earners have been in Health, including New York-based Kurron Shares, which is receiving $11 million plus expenses over five years for giving management assistance to Bermuda Hospitals Board.

A separate company called Kurron Bermuda was awarded $1 million for implementing FutureCare.

The KEMH Redevelopment Project gets approximately $10 million providing support and advice for the hospital rebuild PPP project, while the Greeley Company of Massachusetts got just short of $900,000 providing Chief of Staff Donald Thomas and associated services.

While the majority of the rest were Bermuda-based consultants, others from overseas include Johns Hopkins Medicine International, which received more than $630,000 for its Estate Master Plan ahead of the hospital redevelopment.

Morenau Sobeco was hired from Ontario, Canada, to conduct "a review of the annual review process" among other tasks in 2008, costing $51,000.

Ontario-based Technical Standards and Safety Authority was paid $27,000 to carry out a review on the Belco fire; and Josip Nosil of Canada got $41,000 plus expenses for "radiation inspection".

Among the Finance consultants, half were Bermudian, with the rest split evenly between the US, the UK, Canada and the Caribbean, and one from the Philippines.

Boston-based Reflexis Inc. was paid $464,000 over two years to develop and implement a new online filing system, while Guluzar Ritchie of the UK got $500,000 over two years to provide programming services to the Accountant General's Department.

Education spent just over $1.3 million with Henry Johnson getting $426,000 for overseeing the implementation of the Hopkins Report's recommendations.

Some in the business community have previously said Government could ease its financial crisis by cancelling all its consultancies to save $100 million a year.

However, reacting last night, Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards said it appeared to be "business as usual".

"We hear some lip service about cutting back expenses, but there's no evidence there's been any cut back in these consultants," said Mr. Richards of the Finance figures, which Ms Cox released in response to his Parliamentary Questions.

"We have the biggest Government in the history of Bermuda and yet they have to hire all these extra people.

"It shows there's no real effort to cut back expenses at a time when clearly revenues are down in a major way."

Ms Cox has previously defended her Ministry's use of consultants by saying they provide good value for money for the important services they provide, and that they don't demonstrate a lack of fiscal prudence or extravagance.

She says Government spends less than $25 million on overseas consultants.