Stage set for duel as workers accuse VCs of squandering their cash

By AUGUSTINE ODUOR

Kenya: The stage is now set for a major showdown between public university lecturers and their vice chancellors as the final effort by Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi to avert the strike collapsed Tuesday morning.

At the centre of the dispute is full payment of the second phase of the Sh7.8 billion salary award that the lecturers negotiated in 2012.

The cash was to be paid in two phases. Half of the negotiated money was paid in December 2012.

The remaining Sh3.9 billion is what is what the lecturers and the non-teaching staff are now demanding for.

The two unions said yesterday the Treasury had released the monies and accused the VCs of squandering their negotiated ‘sweat.’

The effort by Prof Kaimenyi came as House Committee on Education asked the ministry to bring  the two warring parties to the negotiating  table.

This was after several earlier meetings convened by the Sabina Chege-led committee failed to broker a truce as the Kenya University Staff Union (Kusu) and Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) maintained they had been robbed of their “sweat”.

Kusu and Uasu secretary-generals Charles Mukhwaya and Muga K’Olale accused the VCs of diverting their monies to recruit new staff.

The VCs, however, told the House committee that the monies were not misused and noted that they can account for their expenditure. They said they faced major challenges in paying the monies because the payment formula used was complicated.

“The moment the money was awarded to the unions we sat and agreed on a payment formula. But the moment we got the money and started the payment process, we realised that we needed to re-look at the formula afresh,” said Francis Aduol, Technical University of Kenya vice chancellor.

He told the Education team that contrary to the earlier agreements, this was a unique one.

“Most of the time salary increments are negotiated by percentages and that is what determines the money to be paid. But this is a situation where the unions negotiated for an amount and we had to work backwards to calculate the percentage,’ said Prof Aduol.

The Vice Chancellors Committee Chair Mabel Imbuga, who is also the vice chancellor for Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, told the Chege-led team that  some of the money had not been paid and noted that the “surplus” money is still intact.

Reconcile figure

Chege asked the ministry to convene a meeting to reconcile the figures fronted by the unions and the payment schedules from universities.

A ten-member team drawn from public universities and the two unions constituted for this purpose failed to reconcile the figures. It also  emerged that VCs also benefited from the salary award yet they fell out of the job group 1 to 15 targeted in the salary agreement. VCs fall under job group 16.

Imbuga announced that some Sh1.3 billion was available and would be refunded. The figure later rose to Sh2.2 billion. And now Kusu and Uasu claim that the entire Sh3.9 billion was never paid to the lectures.

Ms Chege instructed each university VCs to prepare their record and appear before her committee to ‘individually’ explain their expenditure.

Education PS Bellio Kipsang also indicated that each university will be treated individually. The VCs never appeared before the House committee again.

Mukhwaya yesterday accused the ministry of protecting the VCs, whom he said had “stolen” their money.

He said the meeting by Prof Kaimenyi collapsed because the ministry tried to coerce them into settling for less.  “The agreement was that we get 33.1 per cent increment on salaries and another 17 per cent increment on house allowance. But the CS wanted us to accept 22 per cent salary increment,” said Mukhwaya.