will have to wait until Valentine's Day to receive mail caught up in a backlog.

Mr. Crichlow described the report on VSB -- which claimed the backlog could not be dealt with because Government would not give the Post Office overtime pay -- as "utter nonsense''.

Mr. Crichlow said there was a lot of mail piling up from the Christmas period.

And he admitted he could not give a date when it will be delivered until he assesses the situation today.

He will get a report from the Airport Post Office today and will then decide if overtime is needed to get the mail out quickly.

In addition, a huge amount of sea mail arriving on container ships will also have to be sorted.

He said: "I'm confident that if there is a backlog that requires overtime that (the Ministry of) Finance will let us have the money. It's common sense.

"I've got an overtime budget and I would have to exhaust that before I go to Finance. There is a lot of mail down there that's built up over the holiday.

It's been an unusual holiday becuase there's been so many holidays between working days.

"We just have to clear that then we'll be back to regular business.''