Lecturers and other members of staff of University of Kibungo are demanding their salaries that have not been paid for the last five months.

They say they are finding it hard to survive as they depend on their monthly salaries.

"The issue of not paying us has been there for long, despite our complaints, the university management has kept a deaf ear and this has affected us a lot,” said one lecturer on condition of anonymity.

"We last received our salaries in June last year and the university paid us two months recently after we complained,” he added.

The New Times has also learnt that some of staff members, including lecturers, have quit the university after it failed to pay them.

"Delayed payment also affects quality of education as lecturers as well as other staff have no morale to concentrate,” said one of the affected staff members.

Created in 2003, the University of Kibungo has 2,100 students in both of campuses in Ngoma in Eastern Province and Rulindo in Northern Province.

The university employs more than 50 full time teaching and non-teaching staff as well visiting staff, according to its website.

According to the Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Egide Karugarama Gahima, the delays were due to the fact that students don’t pay tuition on time, exerting pressure on the varsity’s limited resources.

"There have been an issue whereby students delay to pay tuition fees while we use the same fees to pay lecturers and the staff, it is a bad system that affects the cash flow, hence failing to pay our staff,” he said.

"Students tend to pay school fees only when the time for exams approaches while we have issues of delays of disbursement of money covered by other institutions like FARG,” Gahima added.

"We are working on it and the next term we will ensure that students pay first to ensure that we don’t have issues of cash scarcity. We will ensure students pay on time and we will first cater for the arrears as soon as we get money,” he added.

FARG, or the Fund for the Assistance of Genocide Survivors, pays tuition for vulnerable Genocide survivor students.

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