The Minister of Education and Sports, Janet Kataha Museveni has assured Parliament that the strike by non-teaching staff of public universities shall be called off by Thursday and business will commence effectively.
This was during her statement on the floor of Parliament on the status of payment of salaries of the striking workers.
“Government has made a commitment to pay all arrears for the non-teaching staff arising out of non-inclusion in the salary enhancement for financial year 2015/16 which had been paid to their teaching staff counterparts,” said the Minister.
“These arrears will be paid out in the second quarter of financial year 2016/17 in line with the resolution reached during a meeting with the non-teaching staff held on Monday.
The Minister noted that in the meeting, the affected parties agreed to come up with a final decision of calling off the strike after availing them with a commitment letter to the effect.
“We had a commitment yesterday in our last meeting with the non-teaching staff of these universities and they requested for a commitment letter which was supposed to be given to them today so that they can do their part and that is why they are now holding an assembly so that they can get over with the strike which I believe they will because they got the letter today.
“I am hoping the strike will be ending on Thursday so that Universities can open up for students to get back to school since government has answered all their concerns; they will also do their work.”
The Minister further clarified that government shall avail separate funding for the new three government operationalised public universities of Lira, Soroti and Kabale within the financial year 2016/17.
“Due to financial constraints, the startup wage of these Universities had initially been carved out of the enhanced package of Sh78.5bn for the existing Public Universities and this caused some discontent among both the Teaching and Non-teaching staff in those institutions.
The State Minister of Finance, Planning and Economic Development noted that the funds that will be used to run the new universities will be availed through a supplementary budget.