The staff of the University of The Gambia commenced a sit-down strike on 1st July 2021 and senior lecturer and president of the UTG law faculty and staff association Dr. Alieu Gibba Warned students to refrain from interfering in their situation.

Speaking at a press conference, Dr. Alieu Gibba, a senior lecturer and president of the UTG law faculty and staff association said, 96% of members have unanimously agreed to take part in the strike until their demands are met.

Allegedly one hundred and fifty six out of one hundred and sixty staff voted in favor to take part in the strike. Dr. Gibba said over their past five years efforts and talks were made with stakeholders and National Assembly Members on the dying situation of the UTG but to no avail.

Among the challenges faced by the institution are lack of adequate resources such as, access to internet, lack of standard lab equipment, cool ventilation structures, lack of specialization libraries, establishment of an independent audit office of the UTG salary scale among others. “The arrears are compounding. We are subvented with a low amount of money and our salaries are huge,” Dr. Alieu Gibba said. Therefore, “we want this money to be paid.”

He said they have been paid but it has compounded over the past five years. “Over the past five years it has compounded to one hundred and fifty million dalasi,” Dr. Gibba said.

Dr. Gibba stated that the situation is seriously affecting the output of the students and hindering the exercising of their duties and responsibilities. He called on the government and stakeholders to ease the situation.

Madam Fatou Kinneh Jagne Kantara, a philosophy lecturer at the UTG hopes that things will be solved for the benefit of the students. “Am particularly worried about our philosophy students in the University who are in a course with Cambridge University,” Madam Kinneh Jagne Kantara said.

She added that those students are from Brikama and they are science students. “They have a lot of internet issues that are affecting their studies,” she said.

According to the UTG staff association, the sit-down strike will be effective on 1 July 2021. Among their demands is to have a staff tribunal set up as signed in the 2016 tertiary and high education act.

Dr. Ensa Touray, Vice President of the UTG faculty and staff association speaks on responding and restructuring the UTG to have a new council as stipulated by the UTG policy. “Once our policies are not operational, then individual hegemony will be the order of the day in terms of controlling the university,” De. Ensa Touray said.

He said what they want is to have a legal or legislative governing council. He said the interim have been serving for over four years and that is against the UTG policy, he noted.

 

By Dawda Baldeh