Tyrone Reid and Edmond Campbell, Staff Reporters

Unions representing public-sector workers in the Government Employees Administrative Services Only (GEASO) Health Scheme yesterday called for heads to roll in light of flagrant breaches on the part of the Ministry of Finance in what is now being called the GEASO fiasco.

The group argued that at least two clear breaches were committed. The union sources revealed that contrary to established protocol, they were excluded from two critical stages of the selection process.

President of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), Hopeton Henry, said the ministry finally accepted that there were breaches at Wednesday's meeting. However, he said at previous meetings, officials from the ministry refused to admit that there were infringements.

No logical explanation

"There is no logical explanation why those officials from the Ministry of Finance were sticking to their guns there were clear breaches," Henry told The Gleaner yesterday.

Continuing, he said: "I raised this question yesterday (Wednesday) and I did not get a satisfactory answer as to why, in the face of all these breaches, were these officials sticking to their positions."

"(Granville) Valentine from the NWU even suggested that heads should roll," he added.

According to the unions, the Ministry of Finance's request for proposals (RFP) mandated that all representations by the tenderer, in response to the RFP, should have been relied upon by the ministry and the GEASO committee in their evaluation.

In addition, the RFP document said that a shortlist of tenderers who submitted substantial responsive proposals, which satisfied the minimum 80 points, might be invited to an interview by a team consisting of the consultants, the ministry and some members of the GEASO monitoring committee. The unions said they were excluded from these stages, which constituted the second breach.

A breakdown of the evaluation criteria by Coke and Associates - Eckler Partners in determining the health-insurance provider for the GEASO Health Scheme shows that Blue Cross of Jamaica Limited had outscored its rival, Life of Jamaica, by eight points.

The two providers shared similar scores on five criteria, but in another five areas, Blue Cross edged out its competitor.

Proposal rejected

On this basis, Coke and Associates - Eckler Partners gave the nod to Blue Cross of Jamaica, but the Ministry of Finance and Planning, which recruited the actuarial firm to carry out the evaluation, rejected the proposal of the company and indicated that LoJ was its choice.

News also surfaced that Coke and Associates - Eckler Partners has provided actuarial services for both LoJ and Blue Cross of Jamaica.

In its 2006 annual report, LoJ indicated that the actuarial firm had done work on its behalf.

Blue Cross of Jamaica also admitted that the firm had been employed to do pension-plan reviews for the company.

At yesterday's meeting between the GEASO Monitoring Committee and the Ministry of Finance, it was concluded that the formal process of awarding the GEASO contract should be temporarily suspended, pending consideration of the matter by Cabinet.

tyrone.reid@gleanerjm.com/edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com