Following pressure from lecturers in various public universities, the finance ministry has released 33.8 billion Shillings as payment for the delayed enhancement salary arrears for public university staff members.
The payment covers 29.5 billion Shillings for enhancement of salaries and the 4.3 billion Shillings as arrears to non-teaching staff across Ugandan public universities. Lecturers from Kyambogo University, Makerere, MUBS and Busitema had already announced the suspension of teaching services until their money is paid.
According to Sharifah Buzeki, the Commissioner in charge of Human Resource Management in the Ministry of Public Service, the ministry has already revised allocations to each of the universities. The allocation gives Makerere university a whooping 13 billion Shillings, while 3.87 billion Shillings will go to Kyambogo University.
Gulu University was allocated 2.59 billion Shillings and Makerere University Business School (MUBS) takes 2.47 billion Shillings. 2.19 billion Shillings will be used to clear payments of staff at Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), 1.4 billion Shillings will go to Busitema, 1.39 billion Shillings is for Kabale University, while staff at Muni University will share 627 million Shillings.
Others are Soroti University with a share of 393 million Shillings, Uganda Management Institute (UMI) with 752 million Shillings, and Lira University with a share of 708 million Shillings.
As they wait for the Ministry of Education and Sports to confirm the allocation, Rev. Dr Grace Lubaale, the Chairperson of the Kyambogo University Academic Staff Association has revealed that they are likely to suspend their national wide strike as soon as the allocations are confirmed today.
“The pressure is too much on them. We are impressed by the developments. Actually, we are following up with the Ministry of Education to confirm the allocations by tomorrow (Wednesday). Once things go as we see, we shall close that chapter and open a new one,” Dr Lubaale said.
