In 2012 I joined Ugandan Christian University to pursue an undergraduate degree program in Engineering, a baby program at the Christian institution. Although my table placed Makerere University and Kyambogo University with surveying and statistics undergraduate programs respective whose tuition fees were relatively affordable for my poor parent’s shallow pockets, we as a family still opted for the Mukono stationed institution. This was because my parents believed and hoped the institution’s Christian stern moral backbone would help me relinquish my old vile behaviors.
It’s been three years down this aisle since glam me joined the institution. Then it was mandatory for each student to pay a 1.98 million tuition fee prior registration. However the university in a gesture to sympathise with the poor man’s kid devised the half tuition payment. But over this stretch of time, this Christian institution’s empathic facade was all a hoax and a marketing strategy to lure its customers there. Am John Paul Kizza and 700 Uganda shillings nearly cost me a dead academic year.
Registration Deadline Heat Friday 23rd January 2015, the registration deadline though I’m doubtful whether I’ll make it by the day’s 4pm deadline. I make a few phone calls to pap and mum to confirm if they’re at par with the whole day’s process and requirements. But my odds and registration chances continue to slim when I hear about their saddening struggle to finance even my younger brother’s miniature meals and hostel fees.
At 1pm I receive a call from my dearest mum informing me she has managed to raise 1.21 million of the required 1,215,500 tuition fees. Hurriedly I borrow UgShs7000 from a close friend; 5000 to replenish the on the half tuition fees and 2000 was to cater for the bank charges, and under the scorching sun I begin my trek to Century Bank Mukono branch to cash the university’s hungry account.
Gruesome UCU Account’s Office Attendants At the bank, after enduring the tedious queues I’m dismayed when the teller requests me to top an extra UgShs200 to my UgShs2000 bank charge obviously which my swallow pockets don’t have. It’ a secondary girl that comes to my rescue when she tosses a 200 shilling coin to me. All stamped and done I once again begin my long journey back to campus on foot.
It’s 3:40pm and behind the accounts office, the student numbers are relatively small, I wait patiently albeit the account’s office attendants sluggishly clear on by one. Here the comical though sorry moments unravel. A dark, partially bald headed dude wearing a van dyke beard, fat sized with a pot belly refuses to clear me for on grounds that I hadn’t paid UgShs200 bank charge and lacked UgShs500 on my half payment. I tried explaining to him my whole ordeal and also showed him the teller’s signature she had appended not only on mine but also to two acquaintances’ slips I was with at the bank. He was adamant, laughed and rather in a stern tone directed me to the accounts office where I was to clear from or risk a dead semester. A light skinned immaculately dressed lady clearing the law faculty students then laughed at me as she humorously asked which adult like me would lack 700 shillings.
Other Cases Did I get the UgShs700? Yes I’d from the university Askari. That maybe my story but many UCU students have been victims of the university’s account’s office gruesome acts. In 2013 three engineering students got dead years because one attendant in the accounts office refused to register them since they were 5 minutes late passed deadline yet they’d pay their fees earlier. Many students have been harassed, abused or defamed by these account office attendants in one way or the other.
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