UB cut 270 employees

The University of Botswana (UB) is currently undertaking a rationalisation process that will see 270 of its employees retrenched at a cost of P208 million worth of the retrenchment packages under the newly implemented High Performance Organisation (HPO) strategy, The Patriot on Sunday has learnt.

UB in its drive of transforming into a globally competitive education provider adopted the HPO strategy, with the Vice Chancellor Professor David Norris saying they intend to usher in a new robust organ­isa­tion with agreed deliv­er­ables.

UB issued letters inviting employees, who wish to voluntarily exit the institution as part of the HPO implementation, to apply. This followed intense nego­ti­ations between man­age­ment and the three UB uni­ons – UBASSU, UBSU and Manual Worker’s Union – on retrench­ment pack­ages for vol­un­tary and invol­un­tary retrench­ment.

Responding to The Patriot on Sunday enquiries regarding the retrenchment process, UB Director of Public Affairs Dr Faith Rapuleng-Tuelo said the University of Botswana has retrenched 270 of its employees including both academic and support staff. She said UB expects to spend around P208 million to facilitate retrenchment packages.

Delving into the merits of HPO, she said UB has developed a new strategic plan, adding that in order to implement this strategy, the University needs to re-organise itself – something that inevitably results in creation of new jobs requiring different set of qualifications and competencies.

She also said the new organisation structure and related processes are geared at capacitating the University to execute its new strategic plan in a much more efficient and effective manner. “The University needs this as it has continued to experience dwindling financial support from its main financier – the government. Right-sizing had become a business imperative,” said Dr Rapuleng-Tuelo. Additionally, she said the consultative process with the Trade Unions was extensive – from the beginning to the end.

According to her, most of those who have been retrenched have been paid what is due to them.  “Only a few people are still trying to get clearance from Botswana Unified Revenue Services (BURS) before their payments can be affected,” she said.

Union

Meanwhile, Secretary General of UBASSU Dr Seabo Batlang said the retrenchment process was not as transparent as they had expected, accusing UB of hiding key information from the union.

Dr Batlang noted that UBASSU don’t know how many of its members are part of voluntary retrenchment because last time they wrote to the management asking for that information management refused with it.

He also said the management had indicated in their last update that they have so far paid 172 employees who volunteered to leave UB, adding that the remaining employees still have clearance issues with BURS.

“The process was not smooth due to delays and poor engagement by the management. For instance, not issuing timely updates and also refusing with key information requested by the union,” he said.

Dr Batlang added: “In their last update, they indicated that they have received appeals from some rejected staff members and would be writing to those employees directly concerning the outcome of the appeals.”

Bloated

Furthermore, Dr Batlang said UBASSU has always believed that this retrenchment process was undertaken without much preparation.

He indicated that what is making matters worse is that UB has been consistently losing staff to retirement and non-renewal of contracts, a move that jeopardises the competitiveness of the institution.

“The proposed structure of high-performance organisation is quite bloated with several administrative posts such that we do not know what problem the management would be addressing when they retrench while they still maintain a heavily bloated institution,” said Dr Batlang.