KINGSTON, Jamaica — Public sector nurses are expecting a response from Government today about the non-payment of loans made through salary deductions.

Nurses’ Association of Jamaica (NAJ) spokesperson, Edith Allwood-Anderson, confirmed yesterday that the nurses met with minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Horace Dalley, at his office at Heroes’ Circle on Friday and he agreed to look into the matter and respond to them by today.

Dalley met the nurses after a group of them descended on Gordon House during the budget debate last week, demanding a meeting with minister of health, Dr Fenton Ferguson, on the matter. Ferguson asked Dalley, who is responsible for public sector negotiations, to intervene.

In the meantime, Opposition spokesman on finance and planning, Audley Shaw told a press briefing at the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) headquarters, Belmont Road, Kingston yesterday that the Government’s action was “totally unacceptable”.

Shaw claimed that instead of remitting the deductions to the nurses’ creditors, the Government was holding onto the funds for its housekeeping and cash flow needs.

“What the Government is doing is passing IMF tests and financing its housekeeping operations using the mortgage payments and car loan payments and insurance payments of ordinary public sector workers, and using it as cash flow. It is outrageous. It is totally unacceptable,” Shaw told the briefing which followed the weekly meeting of the JLP’s shadow Cabinet.

Dalley could not be contacted yesterday, but the nurses said they explained to him that money deducted from their salaries were not being paid over to the creditors, including mortgagors and car dealers, and that they were being hounded by bailiffs and bill collectors threatening them with seizures.