Academic staff associations in public universities have rejected the new salary enhancement distribution plan by the Ministry of Education and Sports. They say that the plan is putting up glaring inequities, unfairness and attempts to divide them basing on their ranks.
The Ministry of Education plan enhanced the salary of Vice-Chancellors, Professors, and Associate Professors much higher than the staff at the ranks of Senior Lecturers, Lecturers, and Assistant Lecturers.
According to the new scale, Vice-Chancellors will be paid a monthly salary of 20 million Shillings from the current 12.2 million Shillings which they have been getting in the financial year 2019/2021, while their deputies will get 17.5 million Shillings. Professors will now be paid 15.6 million Shillings from the current 9.9 million Shillings and Associate Professors will receive 14.8 million Shillings.
The allocation leaves a gap of over five million Shillings between an Associate Professor and a Senior Lecturer. The Associate Professor will get a pay raise of 5.7 million Shillings, while the increment for the senior lecture is 592,990 Shillings. But the Forum for Academic Staff of Public Universities in Uganda is questioning the rationale considering that the same had never been agreed upon before they called off their strike last year.
Rev Dr Grace Lubaale, the chairperson of the forum says that staff members have been together patiently working towards better remuneration and would not want anyone to plant a seed of discord amongst them. He demands that the Ministry harmonizes the distribution plan and motivates academic staff who labour to deliver work together as a family.
“This will potentially undermine the general performance of staff at other ranks, who happen to be the majority and, therefore, defeat the president’s objective of enhancing the salary of all academic staff prolata,” Dr Lubaale stresses.
Earlier, the Ministry of Public Service had issued a costed structure for salaries of academic staff in public universities allocating 50 billion Shillings across the board to all existing employees; professors, technicians, and scientists in public universities except for Uganda Management Institute.
The Chairperson of Makerere University Academic Staff Association-MUASA Dr Deus Kamunyu notes that the first distribution by the Ministry of Public Service was fair even though it had not fulfilled the agreed salary of 179.24 billion Shillings as the president had promised.
However, the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, Alex Kakooza has since noted that although leaders of academic staff had communicated a rejection of the distribution on the pretext that it was not equitable, they had shifted from their decision during a meeting with ministry officials.
“I held a meeting with their representatives where the rationale for the distribution was explained and accepted by the team,” says Kakooza. But Dr Lubaale trashes the allegation saying that the meeting was purely an information-gathering with no decisions made.
Dr Lubaale says during a zoom meeting held with different public universities association leaders, they have unanimously resolved to reject, in the strongest terms, the offer indicated in the letters from the Ministry of Education.
In a letter dated April 23 signed by leaders of several public universities, the academicians have appealed to the ministry to avail the balance of 129.24 billion Shilling so that it is added to the 50 billion Shilling to make the desired 179.24 billion Shillings.
“If the ministry fails to avail the said amount of money, the staff in all universities shall convene and lay down their tools until you honour the presidential pledge,” the letter reads.
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