Here are lecturers’ handwritten grievances so that President HH pays off UNZA’s K1.1 billion employees’ debt
By Austin Mbozi
I hereby submit to President Hakainde Hichilema (HH), through education minister Douglas Syakalima, University of Zambia (UNZA) lecturers’ grievances in their own handwritings.
Lecturers listed, in questionnaires which I survey-administered, their priority needs and past frustrations; suggested ways of pressuring authorities. I will submit more lately, adding to this 50-lecturer batch. President HH may directly phone any lecturer for clarifications. Lecturers’ names, phone numbers, schools and departments are included. But for research-ethical considerations, the President, minister or media should not publicise any lecturer’s names, unless the lecturer allows.
UNZA is embarrassing. A professor escorts to toilet a visiting Western professor saying; ‘here is tissue if you are going for ‘‘serious toilet’’. Our toilets do not have. Since our toilet door does not lock, stretch your left hand to hold it while you are ‘‘seated’’ so that you push it back in case somebody wants to come in. Since the toilet does not flash, leave it dirty, then tell the waiting lecturer not to go in. Then get water from this drum using this small pail and pour into your toilet repeatedly until all your ‘‘faecibus exturbandis’’ is flashed.
President HH should inspect Biomedical Sciences department lecturers’ offices, Ridgeway Campus, School of Health Sciences. Three PhD holder lecturers share an unventilated police-cell-like demarcation of the dining hall; hearing kitchen smells/ bar noises while working. That ‘kanyumba’ (unkempt small house) opposite National Archives hosts lecturers’ offices for the Department of Pharmacy!
Main UNZA’s Biology labs get spoiled by leaking rains. Students do fewer labs due to overcrowding in ill-equipped labs at Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture Sciences, Mines and Engineering. Education/ Humanities students disrupt on-going lectures, swarming into theatres to avoid learning while standing.
On retiring/contract completion, the lecturer must wait ten years to be paid pension/gratuity while NAPSA refuses to pay her own salary-deducted savings because UNZA did not remit. And she did not invest for retirement because PSMF (Public Service Micro-Finance) refused to give her loans saying, ‘we don’t trust UNZA’s remitting record’.
President HH understands the ‘snake around the neck’ when your earning finishes on debt-servicing. He says President Emmanuel Macron of France asked; ‘President HH, what are your three priority areas needing French help?’ President HH answered; ‘number one, debt restructuring. Number two, debt restructuring and number three, debt restructuring’.
Well, Mr President, we are saying the same. Our number 1 is UNZA debt clearance at a goal before 2026. Number 2, UNZA debt clearance at a goal before 2026. And number 3, UNZA debt clearance at a goal before 2026. UNZA management wastes some K96 million annually on ‘debt serving’; – salaries to retired workers/lecturers whom, according to service conditions, UNZA must maintain on salary until it pays their gratuities/pensions.
Fellow Zambians, let us stop this wastage of our taxes. Government grants UNZA some K19.4 million monthly. But UNZA pays K8 million of it on ‘debt serving.’ Then where does UNZA get its K60 million per month for workers’ salaries? Well, it saves K11.4 million from the grant. Then it adds K300 million annual student fees and K60 million annual earnings from lecturers’ consultancies/‘tuntemba’ businesses. Government needs clearing this K1.1 billion employees’ debt so that UNZA saves K96 million annually to improve lecturers’ work-related conditions, including financing research/publications.
My struggle approach is: (i) collecting problem write-ups from lectures, (ii) sending them to the President and (iii) discussing them on newspapers and phone-in TV/radio programmes. Why? Because all approaches have failed during MMD /PF governments. And my party UPND is approaching ‘half-time’ into the ‘game’ (ruling) but we are still ‘trailing’ with regards to UNZA lecturer issues.
Lecturer strike? Fine. But first, labour commissioners fear legalising strikes against their bosses. Second, some lecturers still work when the strikes’ grievances do not personally affect them. Third, UNZA students may riot, opposing strikes since they love President HH who reinstated their ‘BC ‘meal allowances. Fourth, the general public thinks lecturers’ strikes are greedy driven. Fifth, government accuses UNZARALU leaders of exaggerations to win UNZARALU votes. Sixth, if I continue article-writing alone, overzealous UPND cadres will abuse state machinery to arrest me. ‘Boma ni Boma ‘‘bakaamba’’.
When I wrote against police’s killing of student Vespers Shimuzhila, PF thief-thugs led by Stanford Kayume protest/demanded on ZNBC for my dismissal/arrest. So, UNZA Registrar Rodgers Phiri, School of Humanities, Dean Felix Masiye and Philosophy Department’s head John Mweshi obeyed/tried. When this failed, they involved UNZA’s chief security officer Bwalya Kelabaila, DRA Mulenga Mubanga and UNZA-attached police officer Stephen Mumba to lie me into prison; that I tried to illegally eat the fruit eaten by Eve and Adam. I was acquitted. I wrote articles: ‘Mr. President, pay Faith Musonda’s K65 million to UNZA staff (The Mast, 12 Nov. 2021), ‘Mr. President, pay UNZA debt using Milingo’s $24m as you did with Faith Musonda’s K65 m (The Mast, 22 Apr. 2024 and 29 Apr.) and ‘Minister Musokotwane, how shall I as a UNZA unionist explain K36 million partly unused CDF but no gratuity?’ (The Mast, 7 Oct. 2024). But the UNZA debt remains. Sixth, UNZARALU aspirants have run out of ideas; some trying to feed more from UNZARALU by contesting higher positions after failing in lower ones. When I challenge their record, their supporters insult me as ‘bullshit’/‘mother fucker’; or lie that just because I am a UPND supporter, I won’t fight for UNZA. Yet they let me write-defend UNZA alone while they hide their political friends so that they can lie to both UPND and the opposition that ‘I am with you’. But I stand my ground, because UNZA students and South Africa’s COSATU are getting good deals from governments which they support.
Yes, UPND is behind on lecturers’ problems. But unlike state-funds-broke PF, UPND has built up the funds capable of clearing UNZA debts.
The author will resume Part 2 on BRICS next Monday. Phone: 0978-741920. Email: austin.mbozi2017@gmail.com