PRESIDENT Bingu wa Mutharika has told off the striking University of Malawi lecturers who are demanding a more than 200 per cent salary increament to immediately go back to work or resign from the University or else face the chop, challenging that he can replace them in no time at all.
“I am calling on them to go back to work immediately, otherwise I will fire them. They can not threaten me. They can not hold this nation at ransom or else I am inviting them to resign,” said Mutharika on Friday in Lilongwe in reaction to the lecturers continued strike over the salaries.
Mutharika, who is both Minister of Education and Chancellor of the University of Malawi, said as much as he would want workers to get better salaries any salary increament has to be justified and that Malawi’s economy can not afford a 200 per cent salary increament.
He also said it would be ’silly’ for the lecturers, who he said are just as good as all civil servants, to demand a 200 per cent increament while their fellow civil servants got only 20 per cent.
Mutharika, who was speaking during what he called a Presidential Chat with the Press, said it does not make sense comparing salaries for Malawian lecturers to those of neighbouring countries where he said there are more resources such as minerals which Malawi does not have.
“Let me say; they are not forced to stay at the university, they can resign. They should not threaten me that the system would collapse. If they leave I can count only from one to three before I get them replaced. Don’t threaten me I am unthretened,” said Mutharika, who said if the lecturers would not go back to work he will follow with a deadline before firing them.
The President said as compared to the other civil servants university lecturers in the country already have better salaries.
“What kind of greed is this, what is so special about the lecturers? Just like everybody else you get a degree and start teaching, is there anyone who was trained as a lecturer? Nobody is indispersable. This is the way the game is going to be played, if they want me to be tough I will be tough,” said Mutharika.
There has been a stand-off between the academic staff and the University of Malawi authorities over the issue of the salary increaments which have seen the two dragging each other to court and students taking to the street in protest over the non-ending sitting off of the lecturers.
On Tuesday the students from Chancellor College and the Polytechic took to the streets and presented petitions to Mutharika, who is also the Chancellor of the University, through the District Commissioners in Zomba and Blantyre respectively asking him to intervene in the matter.
Soon after the lecturers started the strike Deputy Minister responsibble for Higher Education Richard Msowoya also challenged the grieving lecturers to leave the university if they were not satisfied with their pay while Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe described 200 per cent pay increase demand as ridiculous.
The students in their petition asked Mutharika to stop his officers from making oublic statements that will worsen the situation and also to ensure that negotations with the lecturers are done in an enviroment free from fear and mistrust.
Mutharika said he just heard about the petitions in the newspapers but he has not yet received one.
However, the president’s statements seem to have closed any hopes of further negotiations as he said that due to economical problems, which he said the lecturers know, government would only be able to give gradual increaments starting with the 20 per cent which was given to all the civil servants.
Mutharika also commented on the quota system in the university saying although he is not the one who made the proposal he agree with the proponents of the idea and that there was need to critically look into the issue.
“There are people in our society who believe there is an inbalance on the entry to the university based on regions saying that other regions are having an advantage over others. However, I don’t have much information on the issue I have to study the situation first since I don’t even know how the quota system works,” he said.
Mutharika said it would be unfair to dismiss the discussion over the matter instead of listening to each other.
“People were just discussing and some people were already up in arms on the matter. It is not supposed to be like that,” he added.
On education in general Mutharika admitted that life was not all that rosy in the sector with most of the schools, especially government ones, lacking basic facilities such as desks, chalk board and classrooms, in some instances forcing primary school pupils to learn in the rain under trees and also with some of the pupils coming to school hungry.
He also said he was worried that some secondary schools have non degree holders as teachers.
Mutharika said government was working on policies which will make it manadatory to have only degreee holders teaching in secondary school. He said when the new policies are in place government would close down schools which will not be complying to the new regulations.
During the over three hours briefing the president also touched on the welfare of the youths in the country.
“My major worry is that a lot of youths are leaving school every year but we are not creating jobs for them,” he said.
He suggested that just like other countries there was need to have a national youths service but said the problem was that Malawi is still haunted with the Malawi Young Pioneers (MYP) hangover and that there are fears that such a concept would end up “creating another monster like MYP.”
He also said government would work out a plan on how it can assist the youths to own houses after observing that these days it is practically impossible for a youths, especially those just coming out of school or college, to build or buy a house.
Mutharika also said his plans to establish the Malawi Development Bank were still alive saying that would be the only way for Malawians to have easy access to loans for businesses.
He said most Malawians just like a lot of blacks everywhere are marginalised when it comes to issues of getting loans through the banks.
