The council of Meru University of Science and Technology has sent Vice-Chancellor Romanus Odhiambo on terminal leave and declined to renew his five-year contract over underperformance.
“The university council in its meeting held on February 27, 2023, evaluated your performance and found it to be below expectations. Therefore, the council declined to renew your contract as requested in your letter dated 20th December 2022,” chairman Prof Bosire Mwebi says in a letter dated February 27, 2023.
“You are not authorised to transact on any capital project in the university but restrict your transactions only to personal emoluments and recurrent expenditure. You are required to proceed on your pending leave of 121 days once a suitable replacement has been identified.”
Prof Odhiambo, whose term was to expire in July, fired back, saying the decision was political.
In an interview with Nation. Africa, he wondered what the council meant by “performance below expectation” yet during his tenure the student population more than doubled.
“This decision is political because when I joined the university there were 4,000 students and now we have 11,000. The farm was lying idle but now it is a beehive of activity and while Nchiru market was a slum yet it is now a vibrant shopping centre. One wonders what measurement they are using,” he said.
The development comes in the wake of a purge by President William Ruto’s administration on the allies of former President Uhuru Kenyatta and Azimio coalition leader Raila Odinga.
Earlier on Monday, before the council decided to send Prof Odhiambo on terminal leave, members of staff demonstrated outside the university against what they termed mismanagement of the institution, alleging HE embezzled funds.
The University Academic Staff Union (Uasu), Kenya Universities Staff Union (Kusu) and the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (Kuddheiha) claimed that Prof Odhiambo had run down the institution and that it was sliding down a path of “slow death”.
They claimed the management had “politicised” the institution, and cited an incident last year before the August 9 General Election when Mr Odinga addressed a rally inside the campus at the graduation.
Victor Mugambi, chairman of Uasu’s Meru branch, said they would not sit back and watch the VC get “run down” and vowed to demonstrate until the Education ministry fired him.
Mr Mugambi claimed Prof Odhiambo wasted funds by opening a “non-functional” office in Nairobi and that he hired staff irregularly.
“The university is spending a lot of money, paying rent and salaries for staff manning the office, yet we have no programmes running there. The VC has also employed a chief medical officer at our health facility yet there are two doctors there, which is a waste of resources for an institution that is struggling financially,” he said.
Uasu Secretary-General Munyao Mulwa added: “Institutions of higher learning are collapsing due to mismanagement and we have several examples out there. There is discrimination among staff in terms of employment, with the institution being turned into an animal farm where some animals are more equal than others. We don’t want our university to descend into total collapse. We will protest until he leaves,” added
However, Prof Odhiambo dismissed the protests as “politics” and accused people he did not name of sponsoring the demonstrations to “whip emotions” against him.
“For instance, the office in Nairobi is meant to market the university. We are not opening a campus there but we need a presence in the capital city so that we can attract the rest of the world. That is the purpose of the liaison office,” Prof Odhiambo says in a phone interview.
He explained that the chief medical officer the union was complaining about was a lecturer who was seconded to the health facility.
“We are planning to upgrade the health centre and since these are plans on the pipeline, we have strategically seconded the officer there. His core job is that of a lecturer,” he said, and also dismissed claims that he was planning to shut down the Meru town campus.
Concerning meetings by the university council, Prof Odhiambo said there was no time a meeting was convened against the law, adding that as the secretary to the council, he was at all times briefed about the importance of each one.
“The council is allowed four meetings in a year but in case there is an emergency, they can hold two more meetings. This is within the law,” he said.
