Increase Nimba County University’s Budget
Knowing without a second thought that education is one of the strongest key pillars in the developmental growth enshrined in the political manifesto of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), Pro-Poor Agenda, it needs to be taken seriously at all front
Nimba County considered a very populated area in the country and equally a vote-rich county has been in the vanguard and wailing from the wilderness for the increment of the budgetary allotment for its university which was elevated from a Community College to the status of a full-fledged university.
According to the university’s release of late, the faculty said, “we write to flag out the government’s refusal to increase the Nimba University’s budget as were done for other highest learning institutions across the country.”
“As you are aware, Nimba University was elevated to a full degree-granting university by an Act of the Legislature in 2022, but since the elevation, the university has not received the financial support from the central government to run the university,” it said.
“We continued with limited budgetary as though we were still at the community college status,” the statement further said, adding that the delay to increase the university’s budget had reflected grave discrepancies among the staff since the last budget year over the budget the government of Liberia allotted for the running of the school, which was considered to be very small to an institution with over 1000 students.
The faculty nearly laid down chalk during this outgoing budget year in protest to what they said was the government’s refusal to increase the budget.
“The Nimba University is the second highest tertiary public institution of the Republic of Liberia with 19 different degree-granting programs, highest numbers of enrollment and has more employees, but yet the university was the least in budgetary allotment in 2021/2022 fiscal year,” they pointed out.
“Imagine, the University of Liberia received about US$ 17. 6 million, the Tubman University in Maryland received US$5. 5 million then the government allotted US$1,177, 064 for Nimba University. This is seen as a total mockery of that University. One would have thought that its budget would be around at least four million to say the least. But to come out with this amount, does not speak well of this government’s desire to promote university education. This is totally below the belt and needs to be looked at well.
As the government is about to approve another budget early this year, the faculty association is calling on the public, especially members of the Nimba Legislative Caucus, the CDC-led government to plead on their institution’s behalf for an increase in their allotment.
“The university’s administration had submitted the total budget of US$5,999.00 for the 2023 budget year and hopes that they act on it without any preconditions because we don’t want to work under constraint situation,” they said.
It remains our fervent hope and considered assurance that this government that believes in the excellent achievement of its citizens educationally, will pause for a genuine cause, recollect and responsively listen to the many cries of the facility of the Nimba County’s university budget in order to alleviate the constraints, stresses and morale problem current seeping in the operations and functions of the university when 2022/2023 national budget takes the center-stage for work on allocations to all incorporated as beneficiaries justly.