The cash to build a new Paget Post Office is still in the Budget, Finance Minister Eugene Cox insisted yesterday.

And he slammed Shadow Finance Minister Grant Gibbons for suggesting otherwise.

Mr. Cox said: "As the former Minister of Finance knows, any unspent capital sums can be carried forward at the end of any financial year into the new year.

"Accordingly, the $671,000 provision appearing in the new estimates book under the revised estimates column for 1998/99 will be carried forward into the financial year 1990/00 in order that this important project can be completed.'' Dr. Gibbons said on Monday that the cash had been removed from the Budget.

And he said Government had been "overtaken by events'' with the unexpected by-election and that "specific funds'' were needed to build -- which were not in the Budget.

According to the Budget statement for 1999/2000, the $671,000 is listed as a revised estimate for 1998/99 -- under the Ministry of Finance, with the estimate for 1999/2000 being zero.

A figure of $671,000 for "Capital Development'' -- which does not specify Paget Post Office -- also exists under the Post Office section of the Budget under 1998/1999 revised estimates, but also appears as zero under the estimate for the coming financial year.

Last week, Minister of Works and Engineering Alex Scott said "the monies that exist in Works and Engineering are for the beginning of the plans and the start of the project.'' Paget West PLP candidate George Scott also said the cash was in the Works and Engineering budget.

But the capital estimates for Works and Engineering does not list Paget Post Office under the list of building plans.

When contacted at the Ministry last night, Mr. Cox declined to expand on his faxed statement.

The statement added that the present Paget Post Office project -- on land next to Trimingham's on South Shore Road -- was originally approved by Parliament in 1995/96 at an estimated cost of $1 million, with $340,000 being spent on buying the land.

But Mr. Cox said: "However, due to the restrictive size of that site, discussions took place in 1998 with the Bermuda College to acquire land at the Stonington Campus where both a new Post Office and childcare facility could be constructed. These discussions are now quite advanced.'' The row over the Post Office has become a major issue as voters prepare to go to the polls tomorrow.

The currrent Post Office, to the west of the Paget traffic lights on Middle Road, has been the subject of complaints for years.

Local people say the present building is too small and that the cramped site does not offer enough parking and questions have been raised over road safety.