Den ugandiske regering er i kriseberedskab når landets største offentlige institution, Makerere Universitet proklamere strejke. Ønsket om en højere løn afvises af regeringen, som siger at der ikke er penge til den slags, skriver Kampala-avisen The Monitor.
The government has called for a crisis meeting tomorrow to try and avert a planned countrywide strike by teachers demanding for a 20 per cent pay raise amid other struggles to resolve a related crisis at Makerere University.
Makerere University, the major public institution in the country, remains closed and striking lecturers have vowed not to go back to lecture rooms until the government gives them a 100 per cent pay raise.
The President has since asked the striking lecturers to go and “rear goats” if they cannot go back to work even as negations continue. But in what the lawmakers said is now threatening to “add insult to injury”,
Ministry of Education officials told the Parliament’s Education Committee yesterday that Uganda National Teachers’ Union (Unatu) wrote to the ministry in June pronouncing a nation-wide strike at the beginning of the third term if they do not get a 20 per cent salary increment.
En strejke vil ikke hjæpe
The Daily Monitor understands that in tomorrow’s meeting with Unatu and the Cabinet inter-ministerial committee will try to persuade the teachers to understand that even if they went on strike next month, it will be a waste of time since there is no money to meet their demands.
State Minister for Primary Education Kamanda Bataringaya, who led a team from the Education ministry, told the MPs that the inter-ministerial committee was constituted after the teachers announced a 90-day ultimatum and has so far met three times but without any solution to the standoff.
The committee consists of key ministries like Education, Finance and Public Service.
Dr Bataringaya said: “We have been meeting but we are yet to come up with the solution. We have a meeting this Wednesday to try and see how we can solve these issues with the teachers without necessarily resorting to strike.”
Ingen penge i budgettet
Pushed by teachers’ sympathisers on the committee led by Joseph Ssewungu (DP, Kalungu West) to explain why there was no money in the ministry budget, Mr Bataringaya said:
“We have correspondences to Finance ministry asking for the funds for the teachers’ pay raise but we were not given this money in the budget.”
The committee heard that Unatu insisted that the 240,000 teachers (from primary and secondary schools) will not step in class when the third term opens next month if government does not fulfill the promise to give teachers a 20 per cent pay raise.
Addressing a recent news conference, Unatu general secretary James Tweheyo said all teachers would go on a nationwide strike on September 14, a day before the third school term opens. MPs said they would ask Parliament not to pass the budget for Education until teachers’ money is found and vowed to support the strike.
In 2011, teachers downed their tools demanding 100 per cent salary raise, but the strike was called off after premier Amama Mbabazi threatened that they would be deleted from the payroll.
Mr Mbabazi then said the government had committed to a salary enhancement plan over a three-year period, starting with the financial year 2012/2013 which would see the teachers’ salaries moved up by 50 per cent.
Udsigten til 20 procent lønstigning
In the 2012/13 financial year, the government increased salaries for primary school teachers by 15 per cent, and science teachers in post primary education and training institutions received a 30 per cent increase in wages.
The government, however, promised a 20 per cent pay raise for teachers this financial year and another 15 per cent next fiscal year. However, there is no money in the budget.
On Makerere University standoff, the Commissioner for Higher Education, Mr Robert Oceng, said the government did not have the Shs107b needed to meet the 100 per cent demand. Mr Oceng said, any pay raise for Makerere lecturers would mean a corresponding pay raise for all lecturers in the six public universities. He said this would require about Shs300b.
However, he said negations were still ongoing, adding that the ministry was hopeful that the university would be opened within the stipulated two weeks’ time frame.
