Uganda/06 Agosto 2016/Fuente: Allafrica
Makerere University Convocation chairman Dr Tanga Odoi has backed the strike by public universities non-teaching staff which has paralysed the activities at the five public universities.
Dr Tanga who is also the NRM electoral commission chairman was at Makerere supervising the issuing of admission letter on Wednesday morning told Daily Monitor that if striking is the only solution, then, it should continue.
«The strike is genuine. The staff were promised. The staff should negotiate with the source of that problem,» he said. «If one of the ways of making that negotiation strong is by striking, they are right.»
However, Dr Tanga argued that the strike should not inconvenience students who are supposed to pick their admission letters.
«If students are not given admission letters, Dr Tanga said, the university will lose them to other universities.»
He said other public universities except Makerere have been issuing admission letters to students as the strike persists.
«I talked to chairperson of Makerere admiration staff association and she said in their meeting, they agreed that all public universities should continue issuing admission letters. It means management at Makerere had not thought about issuing admission letters,» he said.
Convocation steps in
Convocation on Wednesday stepped in to issue provisional admission letters to first year students who are expeted to start studying next week.
The university vice chancellor Prof Ddumba Ssentamu could not be reached for a comment on preparations to open this weekend. In a text message, he said he was in a meeting.
The background
The strike which started on Monday stems from failure by government to honour its promise to pay salary arrears to non-teaching staff in all public universities.
A year ago, non-teaching staff went on strike, paralysing day to day running of all public universities.
To persuade them to end the strike, president Museveni in a letter dated 3rd September, 2015 said «the arrears arising out of non-payment of enhanced salaries due to non-teaching staff for the financial year 2015/2016 be paid together with the enhanced salaries in financial year 2016/2017.»
Fuente: http://allafrica.com/stories/201608040202.html
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