The Vice Chancellor of Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) Prof. Raphael Chibunda has thanked the President of the United Republic of Tanzania Hon. Dr. Samia Suluhu Hassan for facilitating the University through the Higher Education for Economic Transformation Project (HEET) where SUA has implemented the mission of the project by sending employees to study, increasing skills, purchasing teaching materials and the construction of Infrastructure at the University. Prof. Chibunda said this on Tuesday August 15, 2023 when he was speaking to the staff at the World Labour Day celebrations.

He said that the staff of the university continue to benefit directly from the funds of the HEET Project amounting to Shs. 73 billion shillings which, together with other uses, it will also enable the improvement of the IT infrastructure, in which the university will not have Internet challenges. Thus, supporting better performance which is in line with the growth of technology in online teaching.

In addition, Prof. Chibunda praised the way in which all workers regardless of their unions affiliations were able to express solidarity and cooperation, a situation which has been contributed to by the existence of the new Guidelines for the Selection of Best Workers that came into force in the year 2023. Thus he has asked the leaders of the existing unions in SUA such as, RAAWU and THTU to take up and work on the challenges that appeared in the new guidelines to make them easily implemented.

Speaking about the rights of employees, the Vice Chancellor said that the government has given guidelines for improving the rights of employees in the country and that SUA has become one of the institutions that have already started implementation of its employees rights by starting to pay various employees’ claims, such as, providing full entitlements to retirees, and paying employees leave allowance.

As a result, he has issued an order to all Heads of Departments, Directorates and Schools to ensure that they grant leave to employees because vacation is the right of every employee. He also asked the leaders to allow all employees to participate in various sports to build their ability to participate in internal and external competitions of the university and promised that from now on SUA will participate in May Day activities including sports every year wherever they are held in the country.