UB students run amok
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Thursday February 9, 2017 18:00
A group of angry students who were singing and shouting, moved to the UB circle where they stopped cars and started throwing stones and litter at some of the cars before ripping off one of the zebras statue that decorates the circle.
The angry students kept shouting that the zebras that were erected during the BOT50 celebrations were a waste. They said the money could have been saved for their monthly allowances.
The students later burnt the zebra in front of the school gate where the police and Special Support Group (SSG) later came to calm the situation. However, the students did not give up their demonstration as they closed the campus gates and chanted songs that mocked the police and the school management. They later retreated to the other side of the university campus.
The UB Student Representative Council (SRC) acting president, Dikosha Dikosha blamed the demonstrations on the university management. “We requested intervention from the Ministry. We asked them to address the students about their monthly allowances. We asked them to assure the students that they will get their allowances, but nothing was done,” he said.
Dikosha explained that when the SRC was trying to resolve the allowances issue, the students were busy preparing themselves for a demonstration. He further blamed the University’s executive management as it did not take the responsibility of addressing the students about their monthly allowances. He said instead, the management shunned both the students and the SRC.
“I blame the management as it did not step forward to address the students on their allowances. We have students who solely depend on the allowances to survive. We have not received our allowances since the university opened in January,” he said.
According to an evidently angry female student, who did not want to be named, they were saddened by the fact that some students received their allowances. “When we asked when we will be given our allowances ,we were told that the Ministry has no money. How do they expect us to pay rent and come to school on empty stomach because most of us depend on these allowances? Some of us have been kicked out of our rented houses because we did not pay rent. We last received our allowances at the beginning of December,” she fumed.
She alleged that in the mean time, the Department of Tertiary Education Financing (DTEF) was busy crediting ghost students while they (students) suffered.
Efforts to solicit comments from the UB management and DTEF were futile at the time of going to press.