Ugandan researchers demand extra-ordinary pay rise

By EPRC

Researchers in higher institutions of learning in Uganda are demanding for an extra-ordinary pay rise to about $17,000, almost doubling what the best paying country in the World, Canada offers for their best brains.

The Ugandan researchers want pay for the best brains in their faculty pegged to the best paid civil servant. The best paid civil servant in Uganda, the Executive Director of Kampala City Council Authority, earns Ush43 million (about $17,000).

They also propose government to boost research and development to one per cent of Gross Domestic Product. They argue that for Uganda should enhance research to join the global knowledge economy.

The researchers say they are uncomfortable with Makerere University’s proposal of 100 per cent salary increment. “100 per cent salary increment by Makerere is too modest,” said Julius Kiiza, a senior researcher with Economic Policy Research Centre (EPRC), a prominent local think tank in Uganda.

Kiiza, an associate professor at Makerere, was discussing ways to enhance agricultural production at the National Agriculture Forum held on June 6 and chaired by EPRC.

In justification for the pay rise, Kiiza argued that since Makerere's strategic plan shows that the University has decided to become a research-led University, innovative research and knowledge production will become central to university's programs and activities.

“A research-led University is unimaginable without substantial public investment in higher education and research. Public investment (in research infrastructure, research grants, salaries, etc) is critically important given that our private sector is still embryonic and ipso facto, insignificant,” he said.

Most of the high quality research in Uganda is done in Universities (dominated by Makerere University) or some other associated public research institutions (such as National Agricultural Research Organization, the Industrial Research Institution, etc). Our researchers not only earn miserable salaries. They depend predominantly on donors for their research funding.

The absence of government in funding the country’s research has one critically important effect. Most of the research agendas or priorities are set by foreigners whose interests may be inconsistent with the national development priorities.

Kiiza also defended the salary rise on the basis that government has almost fully divested itself out of higher education and research Makerere is on a path to a world-class, research-led University.

A new analysis of faculty salaries at public universities worldwide, in 2012, designed to make comparisons possible by focusing on purchasing power, not pure salaries, finds that Canada offers the best faculty pay among 28 countries analyzed.

The unusual research project between the Center for International Higher Education, at Boston College, and the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, in Moscow  shows that of the 28 best paying countries, in Africa, only South Africa ($9,330), Nigeria ($6,229) and Ethiopia ($1,580) feature make it to the list. Canada, the best, pays $ 9,485.

However, another analysis done in Europe by salary consultants PersonalMarkt, researchers and developers in industry start with salaries of approximately 45,000 euros per year, while their colleagues at research institutions earn an average annual salary of 36,700 euros.

The agitation for pay increment is likely, however, to catch the ear of the Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, who has in the past supported pay rise for scientists although technocrats seemed uncomfortable with the request.

In Uganda professors can earn as little as US$1,000 a month, far lower even than their counterparts in other African countries. For instance, the University of Dar es Salaam pays a professor $3,200.

"The financial rewards here are more than 20 times those I could earn in Uganda," Abel Lufafa, an agricultural policy researcher who has worked in Rwanda for six years, told SciDev.net, a news site last year.

In 2010, Museveni pledged a 30 per cent salary hike funded with US$8 million from the 2010−11 budget. Scientists welcomed the rise but maintained they could still earn six to ten times more abroad.

kazcharlie@yahoo.com