The Kenyan government is, to put it mildly, cracking its brain to find the 5.2 billion shillings that it requires to spend in the current fiscal year in a bid to resolve the on-going strike by lecturers in public universities – the third in a year.
The sum was authorized by the National Treasury in a letter dated November 6, 2017. In it, the Ministry’s Principal Secretary, Kamau Thugge, allowed the State Department for University Education to spend the money on enhanced salaries of the staff of public universities, pending the regularization of the same in supplementary estimates for the 2017/18 Financial Year.
The letter which was acknowledged last Tuesday read, “To avert the ongoing strike by universities staff, approval has been granted to the State Department for University Education to spend Sh5,286,708,183 under Article 223 of the Constitution to enable payment of the enhanced salaries and allowances”.
The authorization is in response to a request for an additional Sh7.7 billion to cater for salaries of public university staff under the 2013-2017 Collective Bargaining Agreement, CBA, within the 2017/18 Financial Year. Under the 2013-2017 CBA reached on March 13, the government awarded lecturers 17.5 and 3.9 per cent increment on basic salary and house allowance respectively following a strike that lasted 44 days.
The CBA negotiated between the workers unions of three universities – University Academic Staff Union, UASU, Kenya University Staff Union, KUSU, and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Education Institutions, Hospitals and Allied workers, KUDHEA – and the Inter-Public Universities Consultative Council Forum, IPUCCF, was valued at ten billion shillings.
The Sh10 billion was released in two phases – Sh4.8 billion being wired to universities in June during the 2016/17 Financial Year with the remaining Sh5.2 billion being disbursed under the current Financial Year. Pending the release of the second installment, lecturers in public universities under UASU declared yet another strike last June, demanding the full implementation of the 2013-2017 CBA.
The protracted dispute was reignited on November 1 when UASU Secretary-General, Constantine Wasonga, called for yet another strike accusing public universities and IPUCCF of negating new salary structures and reverting to old rates. Mr. Wasonga demanded that the enhanced pay rates be retained failing which learning in institutions of higher learning will remain paralyzed.
UASU has since insisted that dons will only resume duty if the 2013-2017 CBA is fully implemented while a CBA for the 2017-2021 phase would be negotiated.
