By Roy Hezron
The University Academic Staff Union (UASU) national elections have been postponed by a court order to allow the elected officials of the University of Nairobi Chapter to participate in the elections as candidates.
The election which was scheduled to take place today June 23, 2021 at Nakuru Athletics Club has been postponed for the next 14 days until July with time and venue remaining unchanged.
The Chapter which held its election in June 16, 2021 went to court to seek an order to postpone the elections in order to adequately allow them prepare for the national elections including time to campaign.
Prof. Kubasu Kwashe who is eyeing the Secretary General in the forthcoming elections and also UASU MMUST Chapter Secretary stated that they will obey the court order in order to give UoN sufficient time to campaign.
“They had gone to court to pray for it. They are our colleagues and I personally would want us to walk together as a family of UASU. This will strengthen the union,” said Prof. Kwashe.
The union which is organised in terms of Chapters representing universities has 11 elective slots in each Chapter which are Chapter Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer, Assistant Treasurer, Organizing Secretary, three chapter Trustees, and Chapter Delegates, with each chapter co-opting three officials to represent Special Interest Groups.
The current sitting Secretary General Dr. Constantine Wasonga will be battling with Prof. Kubasu Kwashe who is currently UASU MMUST Chapter Secretary and former UASU National Chairman.
Chapter delegates to the National Delegates Conference (NDC) are elected by members of the Chapter, with every chapter of the union having a right to send one additional delegates for every 100 members provided that there should be no chapter which should send more than 7 additional delegates to the NDC.
The union is heading to elections when the issue of delayed salaries in all public universities is affecting majority of its members.
Recently, Dr. Wasonga revealed that most universities have not paid their academic staff members their May salaries, a trend he said has been there for the last two months, and demanded that the government pay academic staff their full salaries as it does for other public servants.
“As we speak now, several public universities including Kenyatta, Moi, Kisii, Egerton and Jomo Kenyatta have not paid our members their May salaries while other public servants have already received their pay. What is not happening,” posed Wasonga.
He maintained that UASU would not like to see what happened last year where Egerton and Kisii universities were forced to reduce their staff salaries by 40 per cent.
