Members of non-teaching staff from the nine public universities in Uganda will not to return to work effective March 19, unless government accepts to include their salary enhancement in the 2021/2022 budget.
Under their umbrella body; Public Universities Non-Teaching Staff Executives' Forum (PUNTSEF), the staff passed the resolution during a meeting brought together leaders of different non-teaching staff associations held on Thursday evening at Makerere University.
According to Jackson Betihamah the PUNTSEF chairperson, despite the non-teaching staff missing out on salary enhancement in the 2020/21 financial year, the government has again failed to allocate to them money in the 2021/2022 budget.
“It seems they are taking us for granted, in the previous budget they didn’t allocate for us any single coin. The salary enhancement that was provided for only benefited teaching staff. We have always engaged government but we are yet to get any tangible results,” Betihamah said.
He added that the non-teaching staff at public universities are demanding that a total of 91.3 billion shillings should be provided for in the 2021/2022 financial year budget to cater for the enhancement of non-teaching staff as it was agreed upon.
In 2015, Government agreed on enhancing non-teaching staff s’ salaries following an industrial action that paralysed the activities in the universities as they protested the former’s decision to enhance the salaries of only teaching staff.
However, government has since failed to meet its promise. In the current financial government allocated 50 billion shillings to academic staff leaving the support staff in despair.
