I am Balunywa’s boss, says Baryamureeba
Mubs council chairman Prof Venansius Baryamureba (2nd right, front row) and Mubs principal Prof Wasswa Balunywa (4th left) at the institution’s graduation ceremony in Kampala on Friday. PHOTO BY STEPHEN OTAGE
The verbal bursts of emotion between Makerere University Business School (Mubs) top leadership is far from over with council chairman Prof Vanasius Baryamureeba firing back at Prof Wasswa Balunywa, the school principal.
While responding to accusations of poor management skills levelled against him, Prof Baryamureeba now admits he has had a long-running fight with Prof Balunywa over who should supervise the other.
But Prof Baryamureeba now says Prof Balunywa should realise he, as council chairman, calls the shots and he should take his directives.
“Have you ever seen Mubs advertising jobs? How does he recruit staff? The problem with him [is] he thinks he should appraise me and yet I am the one supposed to appraise him as his boss,” Prof Baryamureeba said.
He accused Prof Balunywa of blackmailing Mubs council chairpersons whenever he wants something from the president, including over his current re-appointment as principal.
“I talked to [former Mubs council chairpersons] Dr Samuel Sejaka, Dr Colins Sentongo and I had a chance to talk to Dr James Akampumuza and many others, but the things they told me, I do not know who to believe, I almost cried,” he said.
Prof Balunywa on Thursday issued a blistering dossier about poor management practices at the school that he blamed on Prof Baryamureeba.
He also accused him of nursing ambitions of taking over the leadership of the business school; now touted as one of the finest in Africa.
On Friday, while presiding over Mubs’ 13th graduation ceremony, Prof Balunywa told guests that it was the last time he was holding forte as the principal since his contract expires today unless it is renewed.
He prided in taking over the school as dean of the college of commerce with a negligible student population of only 250, but he steered its transformed into a 17,000-strong student body with the school now governed on solid management principals.
Speaking to Sunday Monitor, soon after the ceremony, Prof Balunywa defended the accusations in his dossier. He repeated that Prof Baryamureeba has no good leadership skills.
“Look at all the universities he has led, Makerere, UTAMU; he has poor leadership skills and even if he came to Mubs,” he will not manage, he said.
The outgoing Mubs principal warned that should Prof Baryamureeba attempt to impose himself on Mubs, he will not have a smooth ride because they have built their own internal leadership systems.
Speaking at the same graduation ceremony, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, the vice chancellor of Makerere University, commended Prof Balunywa for nurturing Mubs into one of the most respected business school in Africa.
He hailed Mubs for developing solid management systems which are now being adopted, especially for marking examinations and storing results.
