By Monica Kobusiinge
Kampala: Despite President Museveni’s directive for schools and all educational institutions to reopen for candidates and finalists in a bid to avoid declaring 2020 a dead year for students, Makerere University Business School (MUBS) students seem to be swinging in the balance after their lecturers have declared a sit down strike demonstrating against their delayed salaries.
The angry lecturers who have vowed not to step into lecturer rooms before receiving their pay, in a Sunday presser called upon students not to report to the institution as was declared by the President on October 15 until their administration clears their demands.
According to Brian Muyomba, the chairperson Makerere University Business School Academic Staff Association, for the last ten years, the staff have been negotiating with the administration to sort their demands but this has yielded no fruits.
“For ten years now, we have been engaging management on our matters, but these people have been giving us empty promises that they are trying to lobby for us, but we wonder for how will they take on this matter, our senior staff and management held a meeting on December 28, 2019, with President Museveni over the issue of salary harmonization and President promised that by July 2020, the matter would be resolved but till today we have received nothing.” Muyomba said.
According to our sources within MUBS staff association, a Vice-Chancellor at the university should be entitled to a salary of Uganda Shillings 20million, a deputy vice-chancellor 17.4 million, a professor 15.6 million, an associate professor 14.8 million, a senior lecturer 9million, lecturer 8.1million, assistant lecturer 6.6million, a teaching assistant 5.7million which Muyomba say it is not implemented.
“We are to strike because currently, an associate professor at MUBS earns about Uganda Shillings 8 million only and we have therefore agreed not to resume teaching until this pay disparity with other universities is resolved because we have been lenient enough with these people but they have not valued us.”.
At least 8000 finalists who were expected to return to MUBS risk to be affected by the latest sit-down strike.
