- The university boss was to appear in court on January 27 so he could be jailed for six months or fined for ignoring a court order.
- They requested that the election of senate faculty reps be competitive and supervised by academic registrar.
Image: WILFRED NYANGARESI
The University of Nairobi lecturers has withdrawn court case pushing for the jailing of the institution's vice chancellor.
The move signals the end of an acrimonious relationship between dons and varsity managers.
Vice Chancellor Stephen Kiama had been sued for contempt of court after he disobeyed an order to stop ongoing restructuring at the institution.
Kiama was to appear in court on January 27 to face a six-month jail term or be fined for contempt.
The withdrawal of that case comes with demands from the academic staff.
The first demand was for the local CBA 2017/2021 to be kick-started and concluded within 120 days.
This also includes 51 months of national CBA arrears to be paid.
The union wants the reinstatement of the position of deputy vice chancellors that was replaced by associate vice chancellors.
These positions were abolished in July 2021.
Also to be reinstated are previously scrapped departments — Kiswahili, literature, psychology, geography, population and environmental studies, anaesthesia, pharmacology and opthalmology.
University Academic Staff Union also called for elected deans to serve in the university executive board.
“All deans shall be elected and will be academic and administrative heads of faculty. They will serve a three-year term renewable once,” Maloba Wekesa, Uasu UoN chapter secretary, said.
On matters of faculties, they requested that the election of Senate faculty representatives be competitive and supervised by the Academic Registrar.
“Faculty committees, whose members are teaching staff in a faculty and chaired by deans to be in charge of all matters at the faculty,” he added.
The union called for excess hospital bed charges to be borne by the university and recovered over a 12-month period.
“The university will revise this rate to be reflected in the local 2017-21 CBA,” he said.
The changes contained in the document will be effected within 14 days after signing the deal.
Uasu secretary general Constantine Wasonga said they were afraid some changes would affect their members.
Through Uasu UoN chapter secretary Wekesa the varsity management had to fulfill the terms as part of the agreement.
Uasu organising secretary Onesmus Mutio praised the two parties for signing the pact.
Speaking to the Star in a phone interview, Mutio said the move will improve the working relations between the union and varsity boss.
“This is a good thing that happened and we urge other universities to copy the same,” Mutio said.
VC Kiama agreed to abolish the new positions of executive deans and re-instate deans of faculties.
He agreed to a hands-off approach whereby members of the teaching staff will vote for the deans who will head the faculties.
The UoN council on July 9 announced a raft of changes, including the scrapping of the five positions of deputy vice-chancellors.
The DVCs are in charge of finance and planning, human resource, student affairs, academic affairs, and research and innovation.
In the proposed structure announced by UoN outgoing chair Julia Ojiambo, Kiama and council member Marie Rarieya said the DVCs are to be replaced by two associate vice-chancellors.
In other radical changes, all the colleges were disbanded and their operations reorganised within 11 faculties, down from 35.
The faculties would be led by executive deans and associate deans in place of principals and deputy principals.
Ojiambo said the changes were necessitated by the efforts to eliminate duplication of functions and improve efficiency.
Kiama had gone to the Court of Appeal to stop his possible arrest after he and four other senior college chiefs were found in contempt by the High Court.
They were accused of disregarding an order stopping the restructuring of the institution.
Kiama, however rushed to an appellate court to stop the arrest.
He said in the appeal that he and the four senior officials were not joined in the case, nor served with the court papers.
He further said the memo was a mere communique of the university’s institutional reforms, which has already been effected by the time the order was issued.
Kiama was together with Winfred Kamau (acting executive dean, faculty of law), Bernard Mwangi, Leonidah Kerubo(associate dean, faculty of science & technology), and Mohamud Jama (acting executive dean, faculty of social science).
Others to be cited for contempt were John Mande (acting executive dean, faculty of veterinary medicine) and Francis Mulaa (acting executive dean, faculty of science & technology).
They were found in contempt of court in a ruling on December 10.
(Edited by Tabnacha O)
