President Yoweri Museveni has advised staff of public universities to report to work and allow him handle their salary enhancement demands while in the meeting with leaders of public universities staff associations at State House Entebbe on Tuesday evening.

Mr Museveni said that he wasn’t aware that his 2015 directive to enhance the salaries of professors to Shs15m hadn’t been delivered.

He invited the staff to discuss delayed enhancement of their salaries, which prompted them to lay down their tools early this month to compel government to fulfill the directive to enhance their salaries.

The meeting lasted about four hours and was attended by leaders of staff associations in public universities, chairpersons of university councils and vice chancellors among others.

Also in attendance were representatives of the University Professional and Academic Staff Union (UPASU), Uganda National Teachers’ Union (UNATU) National Organization of Trade Unions (NOTU) and Central Organization of Free Trade Unions (COFTU).

“We met the President regarding to 15M Shillings of a Professor Pro rata. He said he wasn’t aware that the matter was still pending, he then promised to handle it himself expeditiously,” said Dr Lubaale.

However, according to Mr Jackson Betihamah, the Chairperson of the Public Universities Non-Teaching Staff Executive Forum-Puntsef, their meeting with the president didn’t produce tangible results.

“I think we attended a meeting, that wasn’t ours. We had all these other staff associations for teachers and workers across and were basically thanking the president for enhancing their salaries for this financial year,” Mr Betihamah said.

“The meeting was not good generally, we came from there without any tangible promise. Not even a road map and we feel we were not given a fair hearing,” he said.