On Wednesday, staff and lecturers from the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) held peaceful demonstrations in Nairobi to protest delayed salaries. According to the lecturers, they have gone without pay for three months despite repeated pleas to the university administration.
Led by TUK University Academic Staff Union (UASU) Secretary General Fred Sawenja, the protestors issued a seven-day strike notice, demanding the immediate release of their salaries and arrears. Failure to meet this demand, they warned, would lead to a complete shutdown of university operations.
“We are issuing a strike notice for seven days and are saying there shall be no services if and until you address our issues,” Sawenja declared.
The staff also decried the university’s failure to remit statutory deductions, including loan payments, to relevant third parties. Sawenja pointed out that some employees had only received a fraction of one month’s salary in the last three months.
Jacob Musembi, another staff member, revealed that approximately KSh 5.3 billion in retirement deductions from the last 15 years remain unaccounted for. “We’ve been deducted money for loans, but we don’t know where it goes because many of us are listed on the Credit Reference Bureau (CRB),” Musembi said.
The protestors submitted a petition to Parliament and the National Treasury, urging immediate government intervention. They argued that the ongoing financial crisis is not only affecting their livelihoods but also the quality of education provided to students. “We have no money, our children are at home, yet you expect us to teach other children,” Musembi added.
TUK is the latest public university to face a financial crisis, with many institutions struggling under heavy debt. Several universities have recently been served strike notices by their academic staff due to the government’s failure to implement a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed last year.
As the financial woes continue to plague Kenya’s higher education sector, the impending strike by TUK staff could disrupt learning and further expose the sector’s deep-rooted financial mismanagement.
