A week after he was caught in the middle of a political storm with deputy vice chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, Makerere vice chancellor, Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu is reportedly stoking another controversy.

Last week, another letter leaked from his office, indicating that the vice chancellor had sanctioned Shs 300m for a committee to investigate reports that some students’ marks had been altered to allow them to graduate.

According to the leaked letters, authored by the university’s vice chancellor Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu, the committee, headed by Dr Damalie Naggitta, was set up in 2014 but has never produced any results due to under-facilitation.

Now, in a letter copied to the university secretary, Charles Barugahare, the vice chancellor wants the committee allocated Shs 300,080,000 to facilitate the investigation.

“It is over three years since the referenced committee was tasked with investigation into alleged alteration of marks. The committee has to date not completed work due to lack of facilitation,” reads Ddumba’s January 13, 2017 letter to Barugahare. “This is, therefore, to request that initial payment of at least UGX 80 million is made to fast-track the committee work.”

BLOATED BUDGET?

According to the budget of the 10-member committee, Shs 45m is supposed to be set aside for allowances, airtime and a single advert to cost Shs 8.9m, while Shs 3.95m will cater for refreshments and food, among others.

BACKGROUND

The committee was started in response to a flurry of media reports that some of the university’s graduates had acquired fake degrees after bribing some individuals.

The senate, the university’s highest academic decision-making body, approves the final marks and grading for students before the graduation list is confirmed and released.

The reports cited a Facebook account bearing names of Sultan Ed Eddy, who claimed to be a student at the university, but was linked to a one Jack Mathew. He was alleged to be working with someone in the senate to change marks. Subsequently, Eddy started linking other students from the institution to Mathew for the same purpose.

Mathew, through Facebook chats, alleged that he had access to university database and he could fix missing papers and marks. He also claimed that if a student had a retake, he could help to get rid of it by giving a better mark, adding he was able to do the alteration for most of the colleges except that of Computing and Information Science.

The deal then was that marks for each course unit could be changed at a cost of Shs 100,000. Many students in 2015 were reported to have used Mathew to change their marks to graduate. At the time, Makerere University trashed the reports, dismissing them as were rumours. However, behind the scenes, the vice chancellor decided to set up a committee to study the matter.

When contacted on Friday, Prof Ddumba-Ssentamu declined to comment on the matter. Officials in his office told us they were concerned that the matter would be blown out of context, due to the ongoing crisis going on between Prof Ddumba-Ssentamu and Prof Nawangwe.

The two officials recently traded letters in which they accused each other of mismanagement.