A prevailing cash crunch has seen the University of Nairobi cut down on tea and photocopy in tough austerity measures to stay afloat.
In a raft of proposals, the university has restricted tea to the Senate, which normally consists the vice-chancellor (VC), deputy VCs, principals of constituent colleges, deans and chairpersons of the teaching departments.
“Print on both sides of the paper, use email, print only when necessary, make meeting short, remove tea and snacks in meetings except Senate,” reads a notice outlining the austerity measures.
The university said it received Sh391 million from the Treasury for the payment of its 4,945 workers against a need of Sh870 million, leaving it with a deficit of Sh500 million.
Lower entry grade cut the institution’s student population by 30,348 with the lucrative parallel degree hardest hit, further worsening the cash flow.
Following the financial challenges, vice-chancellor Peter Mbithi said the institution would reduce critical staff working beyond retirement age, shed half of the workers on contract and will not replace those who retire.
“Stop all overtime payments, only permitted in exceptional cases with justification and on a case by case basis for each occurrence.
“Rationalise staff workload across the board for maximum efficiency and ensure non-replacement of retired staff,” read the notice.
Further austerity measures include enforcement of joint water meter reading, reduction of fuel cards allocation and staff to relocate to the university space (UoN Tower) from leased premises. The drop in candidates that meet the C+ cut-off grade for admission also hit private universities hard.
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Kenya Methodist University in March said it would sell a prime office block in Nairobi to clear a Co-operative Bank loan, tax and staff dues.
In January, the Catholic University of Eastern Africa placed its three-floor Kisumu campus property on sale, a month after it halted business to cut expenses.
Government Plans to Cut-Off Funding
Funding will be cut for older universities this financial year, data from a research firm has revealed.
This comes amid the government’s implementation of the Differentiated Unit Cost system to wipe away the previous model of funding that saw it operate on flat capitation rate of Sh120,000 per student.
This implies that the government will fund institutions based on programmes taught and the number of students in each one.
In the new model, medical students will receive Sh576,000, pharmacy Sh432,000 and general arts Sh144,000 each.
A research by CPS international, whose findings were released on Tuesday, noted that the University of Nairobi will receive Sh4.5 billion this financial year.
This was attributed to the large number of government-sponsored students in the institution.
However, this is a Sh1.8 billion decrease from the Sh6.3 billion they received in the 2017/18 financial year.
Egerton will receive Sh2.1 billion from the previous Sh2.8 million while Kenyatta University will get a cut of Sh300 million, to Sh2.8 billion this financial year.
JKUAT will receive Sh1.4 billion compared to 1.7 billion in the 2017/18 period.
Recently accredited universities will record slight increments in capitation. Among them are Machakos University College, University of Eldoret, Technical University of Mombasa and Technical University of Kenya.