Kyambogo to pay lecturers' salaries on Friday

Over 700 lecturers at Kyambogo University who have spent four months without receiving their salaries may this week walk to their respective banks smiling.

According to the chairperson of Kyambogo University Academic staff Association, Grace Lubaale, the university's top management has promised to pay the January and February salaries this week.

Lubaale said they expect to have the salaries for the two months on their accounts by Friday. "The university has also promised to provide the metrics of paying the March and May salary arrears this week," he added.

Last Friday, Kyamogo University academic staff held a general meeting to discuss the delayed salary payments. Lubaale said they resolved to be patient at least until the end of this week.


"But in the event that they fail to pay as promised, we shall hold another general meeting on Tuesday next week to agree on the way-forward," she said.

Saturday Vision ran a story last week about the ordeal of the 700 lecturers who had taught for a full semester without pay. 

The University's top management had blamed the delayed salary payments to the newly embraced Integrated Financial Management System (IFMS) in Ministry of Finance.

But in rather a surprising way, the Ministry of Finance s denied allegations that the system was responsible for Kyambogo's woes.  

The Ministry's spokesperson Jim Mugunga told Saturday Vision that non-payment of staff should not be blamed on a system that has been there for this long.

"It is true that Kyambogo has had internal challenges that include administrative and operational ones," Mugunga said. "These are well documented and have impacted the University capacity to seamlessly join the IFMS system and synchronise their operations and systems in a timely manner with ours."

Mugunga noted that they were also aware that the University had internal financial management challenges which led to resources diversion to bridge gaps. "As a result they are basically operating in crisis mode.