Makerere Bosses Take Sh355m Top-Up

Apr 14, 2004

THE top nine administrators at Makerere University receive sh355.4m in top-up allowances raised from the private students’ programme.<br>

By Emmy Allio and Fortunate Ahimbisibwe

THE top nine administrators at Makerere University receive sh355.4m in top-up allowances raised from the private students’ programme.

The New Vision has received documents on the university central administration’s accountability for about sh27b collected from private students in the 2002/3 academic year.

The documents indicate that the Government foots sh15b of the university’s annual wage bill.

Sources said the top nine administrators advance themselves sh355m at the beginning of every year.

The breakdown of monthly top-up allowances is as follows: the vice-chancellor (VC) sh3.8m, the deputy vice-chancellor (DVC) sh3.7m, university secretary sh3.4m, chief librarian sh3.4m, bursar sh3.5m and the academic registrar, sh3.4m.
The director of planning gets sh3.3m, dean of students sh3.4m and the university accountant sh1.7m.

This is on top of the monthly salary drawn from the Government. The vice-chancellor earns sh2.4m before tax, deputy vice-chancellor sh2.2m, university secretary sh1.2m, academic registrar sh1.2m, dean of students sh1.2m, bursar sh1.2m and the director of planning sh1.2m.

The Makerere University Academic Staff Association (MUASA) and student leaders on Friday complained that the administrators were receiving heavy amounts as top-up allowances.

MUASA leaders also claimed that sh4b raised from registration fees was not presented on the revenue list.

It was also revealed that some deans of the income- generating faculties were earning higher than the top administrators.

“Some deans of the rich faculties and schools earn as high as sh4m as top-up allowances, that is why most of them are not bothered about the strike,” a MUASA executive member said.

MUASA officials said they were angered because the top administration enjoys fat allowances at the expense of lecturers.

Last week, President Yoweri Museveni ordered investigations into the Makerere finance crisis.

University Council chairman Gabriel Opio said, “The demands by MUASA cannot be afforded by the council. The administrators presented the budget and we found that the university does not have the money to cater for them.”

University finance reports show that the university raised sh10.2b from 8,487 evening students and sh10.8b from 5,966 students in the day programmes.

A total of 4,371 external degree programmes and another 310 students of the afternoon session fetch the university sh4.2b and sh500m respectively.

A breakdown of the income distribution indicates that 59% (sh6b) generated from evening programmes is retained by faculties, institutes and departments.

The central administration is demanding accountability for the 59% retained by the centres.

The University Council last month proposed that 26.4% of the sh6b retained be used to pay staff in departments that generate little or no money at all.

But eleven heads of the richest faculties rejected the proposal.
Instead, they demanded accountability of monies internally generated from the central administration.

The documents also showed that a total of sh614m from evening students last academic year was spent on retirement packages.
Another sh614m was spent on central activities.

Lecturers queried the expenditures, with some dismissing them as “air expenditures.”

Ends

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