Lee Heiman, president of Track Entertainment, promoters of the Bermuda Jazz Festival has not been telling the whole truth about the row over work permits for his company, according to a local production company.

"We followed all procedures in a timely, accurate and professional manner which included protecting the interests of B First Entertainment Ltd, and Bermudian workers. Maybe Mr. Heiman does not realise that the "B" in B First Entertainment could mean Bermudians," said B First's president Dwight Jones.

Mr. Jones also claimed that Mr. Heiman had been exploiting the September 11 disasters in his widely publicised complaints about his experiences on the Island.

B First Entertainment was contracted by Track as the local agent to apply for work permits for the New York City-based company.

But a row broke out between Track and Immigration officials with permanent secretary Robert Horton threatening to have them handcuffed and arrested because they had not yet secured works permits, according to Mr. Heiman.

In an open letter to Bermuda, Mr. Heiman lay the blame squarely on B First, saying the local company had received a $7,000 cheque for work permits but had not passed on the total amount to Immigration.

But B First says that Track changed their instructions to them and then later refused to pay additional fees after being told by the local agent that Immigration had miscalculated the rates.

Track's defiance led to Immigration stopping the Americans from working.

"Yes it is true that Track Entertainment submitted to B First a cheque of $7,063 to be used for work permits, which it was. However, Mr Heiman conveniently did not mention that this amount was insufficient, and that Track deliberately chose not to pay the additional funds to complete the work permit process," said Mr. Jones in a press statement.

"Due to late, incorrect, incomplete and misleading information from Track Entertainment, work permit processing did not take place as swiftly as Mr. Heiman would have liked."

The Heiman letter also made reference to the September 11 disaster in New York, saying that a number of company members had lost loved ones as a result, and accusing some locals of being insensitive when the news of the tragedy came.

Mr. Jones said that Mr. Heiman made no mention of anyone losing loved ones in the New York tragedy and "he wouldn't have known anyway" during the week of the tragedy. "No one knew who died until the following week.

"It saddens me that someone would stoop so low as to feed off the unfortunate tragedy which happened in America," said Mr. Jones.

"We were contracted to do a job honestly, accurately and efficiently - which should be the standard of good business period - if Mr. Heiman does not learn to conduct business to this standard, he will continue in his misfortune."

Mr. Jones added: "He (Mr. Heiman) was just angry because Jazzfest didn't happen and he couldn't get his people here. Things didn't go the way they usually go - sometimes things get pushed aside and we wouldn't let that happen. We wanted to do things by the book. He found he couldn't do it the New York way he had to do it the Bermuda way."