Madeiros reacted angrily yesterday to a Royal Gazette story saying that Bermuda could be blacked out because of the Millennium bug.

However, Editor of The Royal Gazette Bill Zuill stood by the story.

Mr. Madeiros told Belco shareholders in a newsletter that because some suppliers required "correction and/or patches to their systems,'' the company could not guarantee there would be no interruptions to service.

Although he said he did not expect the problems to have any effect on service and the systems were Y2K compliant, he admitted in the newsletter that: "Due to our reliance on suppliers, we cannot guarantee that service interruptions will not occur''.

But in a statement yesterday, Belco accused The Royal Gazette of "gross misrepresentation of the facts''.

Mr. Madeiros said, through the written statement,: "I would like to reassure the entire community that we are indeed confident that all our systems and generating units are compliant and will roll over into January 1, 2000 without effect.

"We do not anticipate any interruption of service, but like every other company throughout the world, we cannot provide guarantees that disruptions will not occur, to do so would be irresponsible on our part.'' Mr. Zuill said: "On reflection we accept that the headline on the front of yesterday's newspaper would have been better as `Bermuda may face blackout'.

"Nonetheless the story, as Mr. Madeiros agreed with me in a conversation yesterday morning, is accurate.

"We are printing a clarification in today's paper on page 4 and we have given Mr. Madeiros the opportunity to respond.''