UoN Revenue Crisis: The University of Nairobi is a deep financial crisis. The most prominent higher learning institution in Kenya has announced that it owes the Kenya Revenue Authority Sh. 7.2 billion.
The university has also been reported to be struggling to honour remittances on employee retirement benefits, insurance premiums and payroll taxes.
Consequently, UoN now risks asset seizures from the unpaid tax, collection of duty directly from their suppliers and bank accounts holding student fees as well prosecution of its top officials.
“The UoN has been operating under a huge deficit and today we owe KRA Sh. 7.2 billion which has come as a result of us not costing our services,” the university’s vice chancellor Professor Stephen Kiama said.
The university dropped into the loss making territory in the financial ended June 2018 when it made a loss of Sh. 1.4 billion. The office of the auditor general said that the university overshot its budget and failed to realize projected revenue.
The fresh cash crisis has been revealed shortly after the university announced that it was raising its learning fees for various courses.
The cost programs such as liberal arts Master’s courses like communication and MBA has increased to more than Sh. 600,000 for a two-year programme from an average Sh. 275,000. This is equivalent to an increase of 118 percent. The two-year MBA course will now cost Sh. 602,000 from Sh. 280,000, excluding project fees while MA in Communication fees has increased to Sh. 655,000, up from Sh. 273, 000.
University of Nairobi raises fees to as high as Sh. 3.8 million. See new fees
At the same time, degree courses like commerce, economics and law under the parallel program will now cost around Sh. 1 million for the four year course duration. This increase represents an increase of about 70 per cent.
Students pursuing medicine at UoN will part with Sh. 3.8 million for the five-year course, up from Sh. 2.35 million. Law is charging Sh. 1, 020, 000 from Sh. 715, 500 while engineering courses will average Sh. 2.1 million from about Sh. 1 million.