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Managers of public universities have been challenged to strictly adhere to legal provisions that established their institutions to guard against rubbing the law the wrong way.

 

Recently appointed chancellor of Jomo Kenyatta University College of Technology (JKUAT), Prof. Francis Gichaga says “I have met with many challenges and my defence for any action that I took lay in the provisions in the University Act, in the University statutes and in the University regulations”.

 

Giving a retinue of the many hard decisions he had to make when he headed Nairobi university, the distinguished civil Engineering professor says “ I am giving these examples to underline that many of us tend to forget to familiarize ourselves with the provisions in the Act, the statutes, the terms and conditions of service and university regulations and systems, and only come to appreciate the need to do so when there is a problem particularly when external auditors raise queries or when the university is taken to court”.

 

Prof. Gichaga, who made an extensive tour of KUCT facilities along the way officially commissioning sewerage Oxidation ponds also had a word of caution for university employee who snort their long noses into administrative turfs of their colleagues. “ I would like all of you to embrace the principles of good corporate governance in order to minimize the possibilities of conflicts that quite often arise when an officer decides to invade another officer’s zone of management”, warns the professor who was the vice chancellor for the country’s oldest university for a decade.

 

An administrator of no mean repute, the chancellor singles out three cardinal areas to focus on for prudent management of public universities. The first is financial management. He said KUC being a university specializing in technology should put in place technological systems to monitor how funds are utilized.

 

The second challenge has to do with income generation. Says Prof. Gichaga, “ we need to be more aggressive and versatile to ensure that the institution can generate income which will enable it achieve its objectives such as in the areas of developing teaching and research facilities and capacities, as well as in the area of student welfare”.

 

 

The third area is innovations in Science and technology. The chancellor is challenging Kenyan scientist not to be left behind by their colleagues in other parts of the world. “We cannot but pity ourselves when we watch helplessly as the technological train zooms passing by our nation and yet we would wish to see ourselves get into the train so as to get into the new technological generation of the future”, says the astute scholar.

 

Prof. Gichaga’s parting shot was a challenge to KUCT to implement to the letter its strategic plan with a view to achieving full-fledged university status in due course.