Islamic University in Uganda (IUIU) has announced general salary cuts of up to 90% for its staff members after they had reviewed their terms of employment amidst the Covid-19 lockdown.
Hussein Lukyamuzi, the university secretary says the institution is unable to pay salaries to staff members as a result of the Covid-19 lockdown whose effects are evident in operations of all education institutions.
Lukyamuzi states in a letter dated July 16 that the university council, the top governing body of the university convened an extraordinary meeting on 24th June and on July 8th in which it reviewed the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown on the university’s finances and operations.
The meetings came to a resolution that while the university was unable to pay salaries to the staff at IUIU campuses in the country up to May 2020, it is unable to continue paying full salaries to its staff with effect from June 2020.
Conclusively, the meetings decided to retain only a small percentage of staff to run the basic and critical services of the university at each of the campuses. These will receive only 50% of the usual salaries. To the rest of the staff, 30% will be paid for June 2020, 20% for July, August, and September 2020, and 10% for October, November, and December 2020.
“The university does and shall be able to pay staff any portion of the salary that may not be paid as from June 2020. Consequently, any portion of the salary that the university shall not pay between June and December 2020 shall be forfeited by the staff” according to the letter addressed to all members of staff.
However, the same staff has been tasked to keep in touch with their students online, recruiting new students for the university and carrying out community support services as far as possible.
Hajji Ali Dago, the head of language, literature, and linguistics commended the university for not disowning its staff like it had done before when it decided to suspend all its members of staff. He however urged the university to pay their staff members’ arrears as soon as the lockdown is lifted and school resumes.
He said there is no way the university can fail to pay arrears unless it exempts students from paying the fees for the semester for which they didn’t study and leaves them to complete the academic year.