NAIROBI, July 18 (Reuters) – Lecturers at Kenya’s public universities have called off a strike over the implementation of a pay rise agreement, after the government offered to pay more cash immediately, their union said on Tuesday.
The lecturers, members of the University Academic Staff Union (UASU), ended a 54-day strike over pay in February and signed an agreement with the government in March for a 17.5 percent pay increase and a 3.9 percent increase in housing allowances.
But they started another strike this month in complaint at the pace of the implementation of the deal.
UASU said the government had undertaken to release 5.255 billion shillings ($50.60 million) this month to pay its members, leading to the decision to end the strike.
“We are not leaving this industrial action with all that we wanted, which was immediate full implementation,” the union said in a statement.
It said it had considered the interest of the 500,000 students in the state universities in calling off the strike.
Collette Suda, the principal secretary at the Ministry of Education, confirmed the deal to end the strike. “They have been paid,” she told Reuters.
The protest, almost a month after government nurses went on strike, had added another headache for the government ahead of a national election on Aug. 8. ($1 = 103.8500 Kenyan shillings)
Reuters
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