TSC rejects petition to have Minet medical cover for teachers scrapped

A petition from 12 teachers asking the Teachers Service Commission, TSC, to terminate its agreement with a health insurance provider was rejected by the TSC.

According to reports, the petition was filed after the contract was extended on Tuesday, December 1st, claims Julius Olayo, director of human resource management and development at TSC.

Olayo continued by saying the petition was unrelated to the court’s purview and that the petitioners need to have sought remedies from the Procurement Review Board.

According to Olayo, “to the extent that the petition to nullify the execution of the contract between TSC and the insurance firm and a declaration that the procurement process was opaque is not only overtaken by events, but also outside the court’s jurisdiction.”

Over 341,000 teachers on the TSC payroll, as well as thousands more that the commission intends to hire, would receive health insurance under the new deal, which is worth Ksh53.3 billion, up from Ksh27 billion under the previous contract.

According to Olayo, TSC would give the insurance company Ksh14.9 billion in the first year. In the second tranche, Ksh17.9 billion would be wired to the insurance, and Ksh20.6 billion would follow.

The petitioners alleged that they were made to pay for their medical care while the insurance company received billions of dollars to perform services.

They claimed that they had to contact the insurance company for identification before receiving medication, and they requested the court to order the corporation to give them smart cards.

TSC, however, claimed that it was unable to fully support the program with premium payments as required by the Insurance Act due to budgetary allocations from the National Assembly for medical coverage.

As a result, the allocated funds were directed toward the delivery of essential medical services rather than the possible cost-involved purchase of smart cards.