Public university staff have resolved to resume work following their meeting with President Yoweri Museveni. The meeting was held Tuesday evening at State House in Entebbe.
The resolution comes after Mr. Museveni told them to report back to work and allow him to handle their salary enhancement demands.
In the meeting, Museveni said he wasn’t aware that his 2015 directive to enhance the salaries of professors to 15million shillings hadn’t been fulfilled.
He had invited the staff to discuss delayed enhancement of their salaries, which prompted them to strike.
Both teaching and non-teaching staff across public universities lay down their tools early this month to compel the government to fulfill the president’s directive to enhance their salaries.
Jackson Betihamah, the Chairperson of the Public Universities Non-Teaching Staff Executive Forum-Puntsef, said:
“I think we attended a meeting, which wasn’t ours. We had all these other staff associations for teachers and workers across. They were basically thanking the president for enhancing their salaries for this financial year,” Betihamah was speaking to URN, a news agency.
He added; “The president informed us that he wasn’t aware that a professor had not reached Shillings 15million as promised.”
The meeting which, started at 4:00 PM and ended at 7:30 pm was attended by leaders of staff associations in public universities, chairpersons of university councils and vice-chancellors among others.
Also in attendance were representatives of the University Professional and Academic Staff Union (UPASU), Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU) National Organization of Trade Unions (NOTU) and Central Organization of Free Trade Unions (COFTU).
Rev. Dr. Grace Lubaale, the chairperson of the Forum for Academic Staff of Public Universities -FASPU urged staff to resume work following the meeting.
“We met the President at State House Entebbe regarding 15M Shillings of a Professor Pro-rata. He said he wasn’t aware that the matter was still pending, he then promised to handle it himself expeditiously,” Rev. Dr. Lubaale.
Adding that; “He advised us to report to work. With the above, please report to work with immediate effect as we wait on the President to handle the matter.”