Efforts to end strike by non- teaching staff members of public universities yesterday hit a snag after First Lady and minister for
Education, Janet Kataaha Museveni, backed by four other ministers failed to give convincing explanations.

While meeting from the prime minister's office, Janet Museveni and representatives of non-teaching staff disagreed on when to implement the President's directive of paying enhanced salaries of F/Y 2016/2017 and arrears accruing from last year.

For example, she said that this money, 28bn for arrears and 28.5bn for enhanced salaries, had not been included in this year's budget but would be got from a supplementary budget. This was met with strong resistance from the striking staff who vowed to resume with their industrial action that is now entering into the second week.

This implies that the five public universities of Makerere, Gulu, Kyambogo, Busitem and Mbarara University of Science and Technology (Must) will remain closed till a consensus to end the strike is reached.

Jackson Betihamah, the chairman of Public Universities Non-Teaching Staff Association (Puntsef) said: “We are appealing to government to reconsider their position quickly. The status quo of the industrial action remains. We must keep our tools down. What we want is the consensus note implemented. Failure to do that, we shall keep our tools down."

However, Ms Museveni again requested the staff to reconsider their actions, a plea that fell on deaf ears. "Those [students from closed universities] are your children and you must take care of them. If they are not there, you will not get jobs...Your increment will come two months from now," she begged, adding that technocrats should be given time to study the consensus note given by Puntsef.

In a similar way, ministers Matia Kasaija (Finance), Muruli Mukasa (Public service), Dr John Chrysostom Muyingo (Higher Education) and Rosemary Senninde (Primary Education), who were in attendance, equally implored the workers to call off the strike in vain.

As of today morning all the public universities were still closed and the staff members insist their payments should be made as the case was with the academic staff.

Yesterday, the vice chancellor of Makerere University Prof John Ddumba-Ssentamu said that the strike had severely crippled the normal running of the institution. "We are really disorganised now, I cant access some documents as most offices are closed."Ddumba-Ssentamu said when he was asked for a copy of the university's new fees policy.

It should be remembered that Makerere and Kyambogo had already postponed opening dates to the this weekend and next Monday, respectively. Now, the plight of both continuing and new students remains unknown as there seems to be no way forward.

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