Anger was said to be intensifying in the public sector yesterday after Blue Cross of Jamaica was notified by its bankers that they could no longer facilitate additional overruns on the health insurance account the firm manages for Government workers.

The notice came as news emerged that the Government owes Blue Cross approximately $200 million which the health insurance firm has so far used to honour claims from public sector workers.

“The finance ministry owes Blue Cross $200 million to date and the bank is no longer prepared to grant overdraft facility to cover the claims,” Nurses Association of Jamaica President Edith Allwood-Anderson said in a news release in which she also said that Blue Cross has utilised all its short-term investments to carry the scheme since January 2007.

Later yesterday, Allwood-Anderson told the Observer in a phone interview that, “Blue Cross has said they will not be able to honour the claims as of tomorrow (today). It means that over 50,000 or more public sector workers and their dependents will be at risk.”

She urged all public sector employees to stand against what she termed the “deliberate strategies” of the finance ministry in awarding the health insurance contract to Life of Jamaica (LOJ), a shift that, she said, would “impact negatively on public sector workers and their dependents”.

Last Tuesday, unions representing public sector workers met with finance ministry officials in an effort to convince the ministry not to award the Government Employees’ Administrative Services Only (GEASO) health scheme to LOJ.

According to the unions, Blue Cross had won the tender for the scheme “fair and square”. They were also upset that the finance ministry had taken the decision without involving the workers, who, along with the Government, fund the scheme and who have been included in all previous tender processes.

Blue Cross has, since the mid-1980s, managed the $2-billion health scheme which it won through a tender process up until 1997. Since then, however, the contract had not been put to tender as Blue Cross was using its own money to keep the scheme alive in the face of non-payment by the Government.

Last year, in keeping with the Government’s procurement procedures, the contract was put to tender and bids were submitted by Blue Cross and LOJ.

The finance ministry subsequently recommended that the contract be awarded to LOJ, a decision which found favour with the National Contracts Committee (NCC) which, in turn, instructed the ministry to submit the recommendation to the Cabinet.

But, according to sources close to the dispute, the unions representing the workers got wind of the decisions and raised questions as to why they were excluded from the process. They also said that after reviewing the evaluation of the tenders, it was clear that “Blue Cross won the contract fair and square based on the criteria”.

On Saturday, the General Council of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) unanimously passed a resolution condemning the ministry’s decision and said the teachers’ union would, along with other public sector unions, “take any action necessary to have the minister of finance and planning meet with the unions to have proper discussions on the matter”.

Saying that there are disturbing questions to be answered about the process, the JTA reiterated that the health scheme is a negotiated benefit for which the workers make a monthly contribution.

“The JTA therefore rejects any attempt by the Ministry of Finance and Planning or the National Contracts Committee to award the service to another provider without the representatives of the public sector workers having a role in the process through which the provider is selected,” the teachers’ union said.

Yesterday, Contractor-General Greg Christie raised further questions about the process by releasing a letter to Financial Secretary Colin Bullock in which he (Christie) recommended that the finance ministry “move with dispatch to forward to the Cabinet the NCC’s recommendation”.

Expressing concern about the “impending status of the procurement”, Christie said that if the situation was not addressed “promptly and effectively” the integrity of the Government’s procurement process could be seriously jeopardised.

But Granville Valentine of the National Workers Union and its affiliate Union of Clerical, Administrative and Supervisory Employees questioned Christie’s need for speed.

“We are concerned about this sudden haste to get this thing to the Cabinet,” Valentine told the Observer. “We have serious concerns over the tender process.”

Valentine said that anger among the public sector workers was growing over the issue and called on the prime minister to intervene.

“We are not going to sit back and watch the servants of this country breach workers’ rights,” he said. “We are not going to let this go.”