Following the recent closure of Makerere University over a strike by lecturers, the deputy vice chancellor for Finance and Administration, Prof BARNABAS NAWANGWE, met with Ali Twaha over concerns raised about the exact nature of the cause of the industrial action: –
The university was closed over a strike stemming from nonpayment of lecturers’ incentive arrears, and we are seeing different figures being quoted: how much exactly do you owe the staff?
By the end of October, the arrears amounted to Shs 39 billion. We pay our staff Shs 3.7bn in [incentive] allowances every month.
How did this incentive [payment scheme] start?
The Makerere staff has been striking for the last 30 years for salary increment but their salary has not been increased by government. Particularly, in 2004, the government increased the salaries of all staff at public universities but it did not increase the salaries of academic staff at Makerere.
Other [public university’s salaries] were increased by 40 per cent and because everybody assumed the university makes a lot of money, the government requested Makerere to meet that increment for that financial year, with a promise that government would meet it in subsequent years to cover that increment.
However, the government has actually never come back. So, Makerere has been paying that portion of the salary since that time. In 2013, staff went on strike again, demanding a salary increment and government said it did not have the money to meet the increment.
And so when this failed, the staff turned again to Makerere, claiming that there was a lot of money in the university and that this money was being paid in big allowances in a few colleges. But the university council initially declined to increase salaries using internally-generated funds, because it was obviously not sustainable.
And in any case, those funds had already been diminishing due to the declining numbers of students. So, the council instead negotiated with the staff associations, a temporary stopgap measure as negotiations with government continued.
What were the negotiations about…?
….For the government to take over the wage bill completely so that Makerere stops contributing since even that contribution was already affecting other sectors of the university service.
And also, in the hope that government would eventually enhance salaries, it was then agreed with the association to implement an allowance which we call the incentive; not as a salary. It is a bonus on the salary which would be paid according to the agreement when money was available and also as a stopgap measure.
And when did this start?
We started implementing the incentive in the 2013/14 financial year [August]. Unfortunately, because the staff had been demanding a 100 per cent pay increment, they assumed that the university could actually pay [it all]. But the council said, “No, we cannot pay it as a salary.
Let us try to see if we can introduce an incentive. When all the budgeted allowance in the various colleges was brought together in one basket, that money would pay every staff about 50 per cent on top of their salary as an allowance.
The staff were not satisfied, as it was insufficient; so, the council was then forced to go and again deduct money from other critical areas of the university service, including research, unfortunately. Also affected by this decision was capital development; so, we haven’t built any building since that time, using our own resources.
But this was a risk!
Because the university had [at the time] been closed for more than a month and everybody was anxious to have it opened, it was agreed that let us do this as a stopgap measure. We are going to suffer in these short areas for a short time but we are going to continue negotiations with government to actually take over the wage bill and enhance the salaries. For one year up to 2015, we continued like that.
Then the university realised that due to the dwindling revenue, we were unable even to sustain this allowance at that rate. The council made a proposal to increase tuition fees and that led to a student riot.
When the students rioted, the president invited the student leaders, the university management, and the university council in a delegation led by the vice chancellor to State House. The students complained that the university was increasing fees, which was going to make it difficult for the children of peasants to remain at the university.
The president said that these riots are becoming too many and he wanted to get a permanent solution to them. He then asked how much would be adequate for a professor and we told him what other universities in the region are paying, which would be about Shs 12m as the salary being paid by other big universities in the region. And then the president pledged to increase the salaries of the professors to Shs 15m and directed the ministry of education as such.
But he also gave some conditions … that we would have to restructure our programmes [especially those] he thought were not critical to national development and yet we were spending a lot of resources on them. He also wanted us to take back the money we had moved from critical areas of service delivery to paying these allowances and so on.
Was it the president’s implied directive to end incentive?
If the president asks what amount of money we can pay to a professor to be comfortable so that we get rid of all these other problems and say, I am going to pay that amount, the implication is you are now being paid a good salary.
Therefore, forget about all these things and let the other money do other work, which money is not available at the moment. So, the implication [of the president] was removing all those allowances.
Did this take effect?
The presidential directive had been that the new salary would be paid in the new subsequent financial year 2015/16. However, the ministry of finance, who were to implement, [said they] would do it in a phased manner over a five or six-year period. Eventually in negotiations, it was agreed it would be done over a four-year period; so, they started the enhancement beginning 2015/16, but with only 25 per cent of what was requested.
For Makerere, the money that would be required for a professor to get Shs 15m, the total amount that would be required would be Shs 120bn if it was to be done at once. And that’s what the ministry said they could not afford to do.
But the university continued to pay incentive?
Yes… you see when the staff realised that the enhancement was not coming at once, they protested; so, we decided to negotiate a phase out, to keep reducing the incentive, as the government comes up with more money, based on the increment promised by the ministry of finance.
But in all of this, we realised that the university was sinking under the weight of the incentive, everything else is suffering—students are even rioting because of poor sanitation. We cannot maintain our infrastructure anymore and we proposed, as management, to cancel the incentive, since government had come in.
But the university council realised that phasing it out completely when the [government] pledge had not been fully realised, might bring in more problems and so a committee [led by Prof David Kabasa] resolved after talks with staff associations that with effect from 2016/17, the incentive would be reduced by 25 per cent [and later 50 per cent].
But this would mean, we still had to look out for Shs 22bn per year. The teaching staff through their association agreed that the incentive could be cut by 50 per cent because they also realised that there is a problem and on top of that, government was also doing something. But of course, the reality was that there was no money.Â
And what is your personal perspective on the matter?
In my own opinion, the majority of the staff knows that this thing is not sustainable. They see it every day. What is happening at the university is not sustainable.
They also appreciate that government has come in to address the problem by increasing salaries but many of the staff had gone to banks and taken salary loans basing on the salary and the incentives. And they definitely suffer a lot when we fail to pay. For me, that is the main reason why a few are still agitating for the incentive.
And if you were the president, how would you act?
If I met the president, and I could afford it, I could then announce my directive and abolish any kind of allowance within the university immediately and forget about the incentive.
All government subventions come on a timely manner. Government has never delayed in paying its portion. All the debts we have are as a result of privately-sponsored schemes and internally-generated funds.
