By Otim Nape
The top officials at Makerere University are split over the fate of Dr. Florence Nakayiwa who holds the position of Director Planning. The workaholic amiable Nakayiwa is also wife to Henry Mayega Uganda’s Ambassador to China. Trouble started months back when the governing University Council chaired by Eng Wana Etyem voted to implement the URAF Committee report on Administrative and Finance reforms at Makerere. Authored by a panel of eminent scholars headed by current VC Barnabas Nawangwe, the URAF report recommended merging of some Directorates and total scrapping of others. The reason for the merging or scrapping of some departments was premised on desire to save the scarce financial resources while minimizing duplicity of roles. Nawangwe then was Dean faculty of technology and the URAF committee was constituted by then VC Prof Livingstone Luboobi whose successor Baryamureeba never bothered implementing the report because he had more pressing priorities like fast-tracking the College system. In their report, Nawangwe and other members recommended that the Directorate of Planning be downgraded to a unit status since the duties it purports to execute are already covered by the University Bursar as provided for in the Universities & Other Tertiary Institutions Act. The committee rejected the argument that the Planning was a necessary evil at Makerere because even other Universities have a similar docket occupied by a Director. It was also argued its prudent management to split finance from planning because that is what is even done at the Finance Ministry but the Nawangwe committee rejected all these arguments. The Act gives the University Bursar power to have the last word on budgeting and finance functions of the University. The restructuring, as proposed by the Nawangwe committee, not only impacted on the future of the Planning Directorate (to which Nakayiwa was preceded by Kibirige Mayanja and John Wabwire) but on other Directorates also. Gender Mainstreaming, DICTS (in charge of ICT services), Estates and Dr. Vincent Sembatya’s Quality Assurance were all recommended for downgrading. Perhaps fearing reprisals from Directors who would be affected and therefore negatively react to the restructuring, Prof Luboobi never implemented the report. The report proposed restructuring in a phased manner whereby Estates would be merged with Works department and Quality Assurance with ICT services. The argument was that Directorates are always allocated a lot of money in the University budget yet some of the roles they do are already being replicated elsewhere. Especially during Dr. Florence Nakayiwa’s time, the Directorate of Planning has always attracted a lot of envy because of the big budget it has and the lucrative donor programs it coordinates. The same Directorate also oversees construction of mega projects including the very many AfDB mega buildings that recently came up and permanently changed the skyline of Makerere. The total worth of AfDB investment at Makerere is over $22m. Being the person thickly involved in this has caused Nakayiwa to be envied by many at Makerere even when she doesn’t touch any money-the principle being eyes on and hands off. Everything is handled by the Ministry of Education whose officials only notify Nakayiwa as a matter of courtesy.
NEW ORDER:
After Wana Etyem’s Council voted to implement the Nawangwe report, the HR Directorate of the University was tasked to work out job descriptions and specifications in a manner that complies with the Nawangwe committee recommendations. However, as the HR Directorate began doing the assignment by Council, officials in some of the affected Directorates appealed objecting to the Committee restructuring report. These included DICTS, Quality Assurance and Estates Directorates. Council considered their reasoning and reversed the decision expounded in the Nawangwe committee report. Dr. Florence Nakayiwa’s Planning Directorate delayed to submit their appeal and it appears the success of the other Directorates’ appeals prompted them to appeal too-albeit very late. University sources say the appeal came after the merging of Planning with Bursar’s Directorate had already taken root and new job descriptions put in place. In fact the current Bursar Mr. Augustine Tamale responded to an advert that clearly indicated he was coming to head an office that would wholly control all budgeting and finance functions including those previously vested in the Planning Directorate. “It was clear the new bursar would be heading finance and planning and diverting from what the advert stipulated can cause legal problems for the University,” said a knowledgeable University official who backs scrapping of the Planning Directorate. Even after Mr. Tamale reported, the consensus was that the current Director Planning Dr. Nakayiwa would be allowed to serve to the end of her contract. In August 2017, the contract expired and she was supposed to leave or stay but in a downgraded position of Manager Planning reporting to Mr. Tamale, the new bursar. “We are angry this never happened but instead Prof Ddumba who was VC and had a good working relationship with her ensured that she stayed on. She was re-appointed in acting capacity which was clearly illegal because you can’t be appointed to serve in acting capacity in a position that has been scrapped and has ceased to legally exist,” ranted a top University official saying he couldn’t rule out petitioning the IGG to probe the top University management over this matter. “You continue attending top management meetings and earning the salary [Shs7.6m in this case] of Director when you have actually ceased to be one. All this is illegal.” The official added that: “We all now know it in top management that the planning function is now one of the results areas for the bursar and we expect Augustine Tamale to report about his performance regarding the planning function as well when his time to be assessed and evaluated comes.” It was further revealed that the ill-feeling the Nawangwe initial report created partly explains why many of the Directors didn’t express interest in staying when their contracts expired.
The only exception is Estates Director Fred Nuwagaba who recently applied to keep his job but was unsuccessful because he miserably failed the interview. And apart from Prof Faizal Buyinza, who is the Director Graduate School, all the other Directors new VC Nawangwe is going to be serving with are new people. This puts him in a good position as they carry no burden of old vendettas and intrigue that profoundly escalated during Prof Ddumba’s tenure as VC. Meanwhile haters, who envy Dr. Nakayiwa’s successes, are plotting to petition IGG Irene Mulyagonja to task management to explain why the Director Planning continues to earn the salary of a Director that she no longer is in the legal sense. Some of the haters believe now is the time to revenge on Dr. Nakayiwa who enjoyed the limelight and more clout a few years ago when Prof Ddumba as VC made her more powerful by transferring the work previously done by Gender Mainstreaming Directorate under Dr. Catherine Kanabahita to Planning Directorate. Kanabahita got so frustrated, got a scholarship and quit Makerere because by the time she returned from studies abroad she had built enough contacts to run successful consultancy.
DEFENDING NAKAYIWA: However, sources supportive of Nakayiwa argued it would be futile to petition IGG since the impending success of the Appeal that was put before Council by the Planning Directorate will ratify all the salaries she has been earning as Director since August 2017 when he contract first expired. “If all the Directorates appealed and succeeded, what about Planning which has achieved visible tangible results through their proposal writing and fundraising efforts that is there for all to see?” said a University official defensive of Ddumba’s decision to extend Nakayiwa’s contract rather than rushing to disband the Directorate. For comments, reach us on mulengeranews@gmail.com
