Makerere’s Selective Salary Harmonisation Leaves Dozens of Non-Teaching Staff Frustrated

More than 120 non-teaching staff at Makerere University are demanding answers over a salary harmonisation exercise they say left them behind, despite the government releasing billions of Shillings to align pay and job grades across all public universities. The affected employees, including Administrative Assistants, Laboratory Assistants, and Senior Clerical Officers, argue that while colleagues elsewhere benefited from the reforms, they remain on lower salary scales despite performing higher-level duties.

Bruce Twesigye, the General Secretary of the Public Universities Non-Teaching Staff Executive Forum (PUNTSEF), said that the harmonisation exercise, initiated around 2019, sought to end a long-standing anomaly in which staff at Uganda’s oldest and most prestigious university earned less than their peers at younger institutions for equivalent ranks and responsibilities.

“In the 2024/2025 financial year, the government injected Shs61.13 billion across public universities. Makerere received Shs12.64 billion specifically to align the employment terms, nomenclature, and pay of 1,099 non-teaching staff with Public Service structures,” said Twesigye. Twesigye, who has been at the forefront of efforts to harmonise salaries across public universities, said that while other institutions moved quickly to implement the new salary scales, Makerere has lagged.

He said more than 120 administrative and support staff remain on older pay grades despite performing duties associated with higher positions, a situation he argues needs urgent attention.

Ministry of Public Service records accessed by our reporter, alongside staff petitions and other correspondence, point to concerns over uneven implementation of the harmonisation exercise. The documents indicate that some staff remain on lower salary grades, even as funds meant for their upgrades remain unused or are returned.

A case in point is Administrative Assistants deployed in Makerere’s schools and colleges. Many of them perform duties of Assistant Academic Registrars, handling sensitive student records, admissions, and academic processes. Under the old Makerere human resource structure, they sat on Salary Scale M7, earning roughly 4.4 million Shillings monthly.

A job evaluation by the Ministry of Public Service, following validation of staff and auditing of the payroll, reclassified them as Assistant Academic Registrars on PU6.2, raising their pay to about 5.9 million shillings. Instead of implementing the upgrade, the university management allegedly created a parallel title of Assistant Administrative Officer on the lower PU7 scale with payment similar to the phased-out M7, while the affected staff continue doing the higher-responsibility work.

Critically, a review of the approved university establishment does not even list Assistant Administrative Officer positions under the Academic Registrar’s department, where these affected staff are deployed.

Similar distortions appear elsewhere. The university lists 51 Assistant Administrative Secretaries, yet the approved structure accommodates only 17. Twenty-eight officers in this category alone were allocated Shs398.34 million in the harmonisation package. That money has not reached them.

Meanwhile, nine Senior Clerical Officers are still awaiting re-designation as Records Assistants. The harmonisation would have moved them from Salary Scale PU14, where they earn 1.3 million shillings per month, to PU10, which attracts 3.33 million shillings. A total of 224.2 million shillings was allocated for this category. Similarly, 23 Laboratory Assistants were re-designated as Assistant Technicians during the harmonisation process. This upgrade was meant to raise their monthly pay from 1.3 million shillings on Scale M15 to 3.48 million shillings on Scale PU10. Like their clerical counterparts, they continue to draw the old salaries.

In a petition to the President, non-teaching staff argue that this not only demoralises workers but also undermines institutional efficiency at a university that positions itself as the best in the region.

“The majority of the affected staff are holding positions that are oversubscribed and therefore fall outside the university structure. Some of the affected staff are in positions that are dead-end in nature and cannot attract further promotion,” the petition to the President reads in part.

A sharper question now hangs over the unspent funds. Since January 2025, Makerere has reportedly returned 1.7 billion shillings of its 12.64 billion shillings allocation to the consolidated fund. Staff and the Ministry of Public Service sources want to know why money earmarked for specific salary adjustments was not utilised, especially when other universities absorbed theirs without major hurdles. This comes against a backdrop of repeated internal engagements that yielded little.

Available documents show that the affected Staff first formally raised the issue with university management in December 2024. They have since held multiple meetings and written letters, often receiving only verbal assurances. However, the university’s Appointments Board, in a meeting held on August 1, 2025, nearly a year later, addressed the grievances and responded to the affected staff on an individual basis.

For instance, in letters sent to the aggrieved former Administrative Assistants, the board agreed that the old position of Administrative Assistant had been phased out under the harmonised structure. It, however, noted that all staff previously in those roles had been fairly upgraded to Assistant Administrative Officer on Salary Scale PU7. “The Board agreed that you were fairly and justly harmonised,” read part of the letter signed by Deus Tayari Mujuni, the Chief Human Resource Officer.

This position, however, contradicts the official harmonisation schedules released by the Ministry of Public Service. In the costed staff structure and establishment for Makerere University, 28 Administrative Assistants were reclassified as Assistant Registrars, which is a designation that accurately reflects the nature of their day-to-day responsibilities in the schools and colleges. In March this year, the affected staff, through their leaders, escalated the matter to the Ministry of Public Service after meeting the then minister, Muruli Mukasa, and other officials.

The ministry later wrote to Makerere University leadership seeking explanations over grievances raised by administrative secretaries, clerical staff, laboratory assistants, and other affected categories. Acting Permanent Secretary Irumba Roger Kaija gave the university until April 1, 2026, to respond. A follow-up reminder was issued on May 4, but the university had not provided a formal response by the time of publication-URN.

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