Capitol Hill, Monrovia: The Student Intergation Movement, SIM, a campus-based political party at the University of Liberia, has threatened a lawsuit against the government if it continues paying salaries to faculty and staff of the institution who are not performing their duties.
The decision of the student political movement comes amid an ongoing go-slow of UL faculty and staff that started on November 1, 2024, following a mass meeting of the faculty in Fendall, Louisiana.
The faculty and staff have heightened their go-slow because the government has allegedly failed to address their demands, as listed in their last memorandum of understanding with the government. Key items on the employees wishlist include transportation, promotion, salary disparity, sanitation, and financial and credential audits. The aggrieved University of Liberia employees are keen on remaining disengaged from all academic activities until the government meets their demands. Read more here
But the Student Integration Movement believes that the demands of the aggrieved faculty and staff are unrealistic and only meant to further dash the hopes of the over 25, 000 students that are attending the institution.
SIM, in a press release, asserted that it is counterproductive for the faculty and staff to stay home and continue to receive salaries. The UL campus-based student party insists that the refusal of the faculty and staff to turn up for work in the name of go-slow is delebrate, adding that the party will take legal action if the Boakai administration continues to pay the UL employees for work that they are not doing.
“The leadership of the mighty Student Integration Movement (SIM) is poised to take legal action against the Unity Party-led government, should it waste taxpayers money on full-time teaching faculty, administrators, and support staff of the University of Liberia who sat home and did no work for the students and the university in the month of November 2024, and onward!” the release stated.
‘It is about time that the employees of the University of Liberia, who are entitled to their rights to protest, must know too that whenever they do not work for the students, before going to protest, they are not going to be paid the taxpayers hard-earned money!”
The campus-based political party, SIM, further blamed successive administrations of mismanaging funds intended for the improvement of infrastructures of the institution, stating that “Students are concerned that the UL Administration is yet to begin important work for this overdue renovation process, and it is also not telling the students the duration of this planned process.”
