By Joseph Lamin Kamara
The Academic Staff Association (ASA) at Njala University College has written a letter to the Minister of Education, Science and Technology indicating that they have not been paid December salary and other emoluments owed them by the college administration.
“Staff have been suffering from the inconsistent payments of salaries. In most cases, staff members go without salaries for two or three months before some are paid . . . The delay in the payment of emoluments to staff has affected household planning and some other developmental activities of the staff,” the letter dated 7the January, 2015, partly states.
The complaint letter tells of the existence of inadequate managerial skills for running the college, which, it claims, “was supported by the Vice Chancellor in a well attended ASA Ebola sensitisation [meeting] where he accepted that there is financial mismanagement of the university and he would be grateful if the financial director could resign.”
It further claims that the Vice Chancellor had written a letter to the Education ministry stating that the lecturers were planning “a course of action” relating to the failure of payments of the emoluments.
Turad Senesie who heads the staff association said the Education minister had not responded to their letter nor had the Vice Chancellor and Principal of the college. He said they felt neglected especially when rent and other allowances were part of their conditions of service, and they were only drawing attention to their “plight.”
“I believe in engaging authorities, but if our case is not addressed at all we will go back to the drawing board, and I cannot say now some of the things we will discuss,” stated Senesie.
However, Vice Chancellor and Principal Professor Abu Sesay denied he had asked his financial director to resign. He however confirmed that he told the Education minister that the lecturers were planning “a course of action” against the failure of the administration to pay their emoluments.
Professor Sesay said even though the lecturers had not been warned that they would experience the irregularity in payment, they were “not fair” in raising the kind of alarm they had because “this is the first time this is happening.”
He said the administration had regularly paid the lecturers on the 25th of every month except for December when they were paid on the 15th before the Christmas holiday. The Vice Chancellor who doubles as the college’s principal also said that’s normal for every October, November and December when “the college does not receive money from government until January or February after Parliament will have debated the budget.”
Professor Sesay said in those months the college had used fees to pay salaries. “But this year students are not on campus to collect fees from them because of Ebola and we have not received money yet from government.”
The principal said he had on January 6 in Bo convened a meeting with the staff, civil society groups and other stakeholders in which he explained his situation. He said his total staff cost amounted to over Le 54 billion annually, but in 2014 government assisted the college with only “Le 38 billion.”
“As I speak to you, I’m waiting to meet with authorities at World Bank to put my case across,” Professor Sesay said.
© Politico 21/01/15
