Last night the Editor of The Royal Gazette Bill Zuill responded to allegations made by Works Minister Derrick Burgess against the newspaper.

Mr. Zuill said: "Mr. Burgess seems to be constantly bound and determined to tie The Royal Gazette and the Mid-Ocean News together, despite the constant reiteration of the fact that the newspapers' editorial teams are entirely separate as a matter of company policy.

"The fact, again, is that the editorial teams of the two newspapers compete for news and do not communicate to one another on what stories they may or may not be working on.

"On that basis, I cannot and would not speak for the Mid-Ocean News. With regard to The Royal Gazette, Mr. Burgess' comments are entirely baseless and without foundation, and are, frankly, defamatory.

"The idea that The Royal Gazette is "working around the clock to disrupt and to stymie progress on the site and to create and encourage rife speculation and rumours regarding the characters of some of my Cabinet colleagues and quite clearly me" is nonsense.

"We have no interest or desire to stymie construction. We do, however, have an obligation to report on the progress, or lack thereof, of the project, and specifically, the public certainly had the right to know that the Canadian partner of the contractor had left the project and had received a hefty settlement.

"At no time have we 'encouraged rife speculation and rumours regarding the characters of some of my Cabinet colleagues' and Mr. Burgess. This is absolutely incorrect and I again call on Mr. Burgess to withdraw this statement with regard to The Royal Gazette.

"I do not intend to deal with every single aspersion that Mr. Burgess has cast on this newspaper and my staff.

"Quite simply, he makes vague and malicious claims that are entirely without foundation and damage the professional standing of all the journalists at The Royal Gazette.

"However, Mr. Burgess' claims that he has done his best to deliver both openness and transparency on the Magistrates' Court/Hamilton Police Station does not wash.

"In fact, Mr. Burgess has ignored questions from this newspaper concerning the project for months.

"He admits as much himself when he later states: 'I am not prepared to spend valuable and increasingly limited time arranging and providing responses to every single nitpicking question coming from virtually any angle on the building project when we are simply trying to get on with the job.'

"The only story published by The Royal Gazette that Mr. Burgess does refer to directly concerns the question of Government giving contracts to companies in which some or all of the shares are held by trusts.

"I don't wish to get into an argument with Mr. Burgess about the general question of the trust business, except to note that I disagree with Mr. Burgess' declaration that trusts are not secretive when the beneficiaries of trusts are by law confidential.

"We reported on the question of a trust holding shares in a company with a $70 million Government contract because we think there is a public interest in having a debate on whether the public should know who is benefiting from the contract, not least to ensure, as a matter of transparency, that there are no conflicts of interest that would normally be declared.

"That does not impugn any individual; it is simply a question of good governance and, in that context, worthy of public discussion."