In the month of November 2016, the academic staff of Makerere University laid down their tools.
President Museveni closed the University and appointed a visitation committee headed by the late Abel Rwendire.
On 29th December 2017, the committee officially handed over their report to the president. Part of what is contained in the 370-page report is the heavy indebtedness the university is facing.
The visitation committee discovered that Makerere University is heavily indebted to a tune of over 130 billion Uganda shillings.
The auditors discovered that the authorities at the university attempted to clear the debt with a payment schedule of 73 billion shillings.
However, the audit revealed that 9.5 billion shillings could not be traced in the payables.
The committee cites fraudulent intentions in the transactions and recommends for an investigation.
Despite the heavy indebtedness of the University, the visitation committee discovered that the university failed to utilise over 48 billion shillings.
The committee revealed that the university has since failed clear taxes to URA totalling 18.5 billion.
The visitation committee also unearthed 12 Bank accounts in standard chartered bank and centenary Bank used by Makerere university officials but were never disclosed to the auditors and the university management denies knowledge about them.
The visitation committee tasked the Inspector General of Government IGG to investigate these accounts and establish details of how they were opened up and the individuals operating them be brought to book.At the time when the visitation committee was established by the president, Prof Ddumba Sentamu was the Vice Chancellor of Makerere. The current vice-chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe was his deputy in charge of Finance and administration.
The university management called for a press briefing on Wednesday, only to remain tightlipped on what is contained in the report.
The Vice-Chancellor Prof Barnabas Nawangwe instead announced that he had appointed a committee to help out study the content promising to respond appropriately at a later date.
The outgoing chairman of Makerere University Dr Mohammad Kiggundu told NTV that the visitation committee could have left out the salient issues that cause them to strike.
The Lecturers were demanding for unpaid incentive arrears totalling to 14 billion shillings.
Dr Kiggundu is opposed to a proposal decongest Makerere University by transferring undergraduate programmes to other public universities and institutions.