Civil servants are only doing what they are told, the Bermuda Public Services Union stated yesterday.

President of the BPSU Nigel Pemberton declined to respond directly to allegations by Government backbenchers Derrick Burgess and Glenn Blakeney about the role of civil servants during the second senior secondary school construction project on Berkeley Road, as they spoke as MPs in the House of Assembly.

Mr. Burgess is also the president of the Bermuda Industrial Union, but it was as an MP that he claimed on Friday night that at least one civil servant had impeded the project ? now two years behind schedule and millions of dollars over budget. That civil servant, Mr. Burgess said, is no longer with the Ministry of Works and Engineering.

But Mr. Pemberton said the buck stopped with Cabinet, not civil servants.

?The civil service are only doing what they are told,?he said.

?They are responsible ultimately to the Permanent Secretary, who is responsible ultimately to the Minister.?

If civil servants are found to be doing wrong or not doing their job in some way, he said, there is a procedure in place which is followed.

Civil servants have been under fire since the contractors for the project, Pro-Active Management Systems, were terminated by Government in August.

Pro-Active has claimed that civil servants impeded the progress of the project, a claim which Government MPs are divided over.

Though Mr. Blakeney and Mr. Burgess have supported the claim, Works Minister Ashfield DeVent and Premier Alex Scott have denied there is any truth to the allegations.

An investigation ordered by Mr. Scott revealed no wrongdoing.