The UoN vice chancellor, Prof Peter Mbithi, has dismissed claims the institution is in financial turmoil, to the point of being unable to pay salaries.
He, however, admitted the institution has been facing a steady decline in budgetary support and delays in release of funds from the Exchequer.
During a press briefing yesterday, Mbithi described media reports the institution is in trouble as serious exaggerations. Present were UoN Council acting chairperson Pascalliah Kosgei and research deputy vice chancellor, Prof Lucy Irungu. He said the university’s council and management board approved and presented Sh6.2 billion budgetary proposals for the year 2017-18 to the Ministry of Higher Education, but the amount was slashed by Sh1.7 billion.
The proposed budget cut is premised on the new formula of costing degree programmes. Mbithi said the vice chancellor’s committee agreed to the Differentiated Unit Costs formula, but the implementation was supposed to be gradual. With the DUC formula, funding is based on the cost of running academic programmes, rather than the number of students enrolled. That would mean some departments, including medicine and engineering, would receive more funding than the Arts. Mbithi said the university council has petitioned Parliament to reverse the funds cut.
He also said the university has not been censured for awarding Masters and PhD degrees to students who had their theses written by third parties, as reported.
Mbithi said the audit report released by the Commission for University Education on February 16 did not raise the issues in its report. He said the CUE has distanced itself from the report published by the Standard newspaper. “We demand an immediate apology from the Standard newspaper for injuring the image and reputation of the university,” Mbithi said.