The administration of the University of Sierra Leone has in a letter addressed to the president of the Academic Staff Association (ASA) of the University of Sierra Leone said that the Government of Sierra Leone will meet with lecturers of the University to resolve an impasse over an unfulfilled promise of a 100% increment in the lecturers’ salary. The lecturers downed tools over the non-inclusion of an “agreed 100% salary adjustment” in the government 2021 Budget.
The meeting is scheduled to happen on Tuesday January 19, 2021 at the new Multipurpose Building, Fourah Bay College Campus in Freetown.
The meeting came after the Academic Staff Association of the University of Sierra Leone (ASA-USL) resumed industrial action early this month.
The meeting will be chaired by the Vice President, Dr. Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, and it will be geared towards striking a deal with the lecturers so that they will call off the strike action.
The lecturers downed tools over non-inclusion of an “agreed 100% salary adjustment” in the government 2021 Budget, and ASA asserted that this adjustment was prompted by the fact that their Conditions of Service (COS) had not been reviewed since 2011, and “our conditions stipulate that we review our COS every three years.”
“The review was also meant to defray the astronomical surge in the Dollar exchange which affects every span of economic activity. It was meant to cushion the gradual, crippling inflation rate we are constrained to endure year after year,” ASA said in a statement recently.
“Despite all these, suffice you to know that our review has remained unaffected by four subsequent Government reviews. Our salary has remained stagnant despite the demand on us to undertake online teaching which adversely affected our minimal salaries.”
BY Theressa Taylor
18/01/2021. ISSUE NO:7981