represent the broad community, the Hamilton Lions Club was told this week.

Mr. Terry Lister, a partner at Deloitte & Touche chartered accountants and campaign co-chairman for the Progressive Labour Party, said the Task Force on Employment would "create jobs which make a few people extremely wealthy whilst having the masses totally unhappy.'' The task force chaired by United Bermuda Party candidate Mr. David Lines did not include "the man in the street'' among its members, Mr. Lister said at the Princess Hotel.

"Government has made an effort to build a consensus, to hear the views,'' he said. "However, the views they have heard are the few who are in power, and this has always been so.'' Mr. Lines dismissed Mr. Lister's attack as "nonsense.'' Most of the task force members belonged to the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Lister said.

As a result, it was focusing on "development and further expansion of the international business area.'' It would have been better to look at the whole community and what skills existed and "seek out ways of further enhancing the employment possibilities utilising those skills already existing.'' Had that happened, places like Well Bottom and Dockyard could have been considered as industrial sites for skilled and semi-skilled jobs, Mr. Lister said.

"One must ask, is the intent to attract only jobs at (the) top end which will pay people literally hundreds of thousands of dollars whilst ignoring the needs of the people in the middle and the bottom?'' Mr. Lines said the task force was "very broad based,'' including management, labour, and "very little input from people in overseas companies.'' Bermuda was dependent on tourism and international business for foreign currency, and international companies "provide the opportunity for Bermudians generally to get the type of jobs that they would like to have,'' he said.

It was where Bermudians could find jobs when they returned from post-secondary studies abroad.

Mr. Lister also criticised the task force for not communicating with the Education Planning Team involved in school reforms. "There is no evidence of the two talking to each other,'' he said. "How can we accept that as being something sound and sensible?'' He also questioned how much input to the task force small businesses had through the Small Business Development Corporation.

Rather than taking the approach it has, Government should target some of its scholarships at growth areas like banking and accounting, teach new skills to unemployed construction workers, and work to shatter the "glass ceiling'' that blocks Bermudians from many top posts, he said.

And future committees should be more broadly representative. "We as a country will be better off when Government ceases to see itself as a part of Bermuda Inc.,'' he said.

Bermudians would be consulted regardless of their political connections or educational achievements "to build a country based on what all people have to offer,'' he said.