David Bahati, State Minister for Planning is this morning expected to meet support staff at public universities over the implementation of the new salary structure.
The support staff members at public universities have been on strike for over a week and maintained that they will not go to work unless there is fair distribution of the enhanced salaries.
The meeting brings together officials from the ministries of Education, Public Service and Finance, and National Union of Educational Institutions - NUEI as well as administrative staff to decide on whether to implement the 2017/2018 financial year salary structure.
The support staff protest the move by the Ministry of Public Service to implement the July 1st circular instructing all accounting officers in public universities to implement the 2017/18 salary structure. They accuse their colleagues in administration of taking a lion's share.
By last evening, the whole Makerere University was supplied with placards with inscriptions "No work until a fair distribution is done. Start Monday 24/7/2017. Please stay away."
Bruce Twesigye, the General Secretary NUEI Makerere chapter, says they do not expect government to be siding with the administrative staff to promote injustice.
He notes that the support staff are not asking for government to give them more money but they are concerned at how unfair the money was distributed.
Pastor Michael Eladu, the NUEI Kyambogo University chapter chairperson, says the unfair enhancement affects all public universities. He argues that some of the support staff at public universities are not speaking out because of intimidation.
Eladu however notes that government should not only end at releasing the money but should find out how this money was used.
Eladu appealed to government and the line ministries to look at the support staff issues before the new semester opens in August. He cautioned that the universities might not reopen unless their issues are resolved.
Eladu appealed to the public not to misunderstand their strike arguing that they are not demanding for more money from government but rather a fair share of the 19.6 billion Shillings budgeted for salary enhancement of teaching and non-teaching staff for the financial year 2017/2018.
