KAMPALA: Non-teaching staff of the five public universities have given government up to July to factor them in the budget for a salary increment or else they will lay down tools.
The support staff of Makerere University, Kyambogo University, Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST), Gulu University, and Busitema University, under their union-Public Universities of Uganda Non-Teaching Staff Executive Forum (PUNITSEF), say government is discriminative when it comes to salary increments. PUNITSEF is said to boost of over 4,000 members.
The union’s general secretary Jackson Betihamah, told Eagleonline, that their contribution to universities is as the same as the other groups of people so they don’t see where government draws distinction to increase salaries of one group and leave out others.
“We had a meeting last Friday at Kyambogo and we agreed that if government does not consider us by July we are going on strike,” he said. “We have put our demands to the speaker of parliament and the prime minister in writing, so we assume that government has been informed notwithstanding that none of them has responded to us.”
During the meeting held at Kyambogo University, 13 representatives from the universities described the decision to sidestep them for salary increment as “segregation” and put signature to a petition which was handed over to the Speaker, Rebecca Kadaga’s office on Monday.
The four page document, reads in part: “It is our request that the proposed gradual enhancement of the salaries for the academic staff of public universities in Uganda be reviewed by parliament in the interest of holistically and across board enhancement for all the categories of academic administrative and support staff.”
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