MANAGEMENT of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) is under fire, accused of discrimination, poor governance and worthless implementation of online teaching and learning.

The Lesotho University Teachers and Researchers Union (Lutaru) has petitioned the NUL Vice Chancellor Professor Kananelo Mosito (KC) to redress of the concerns.

Lutaru also wants management to consider a 5 per cent inflation adjustor retrospective from the end of July for all NUL employees.

In the petition released this week, Lutaru made shocking revelations that the current staff promotions criteria at the institution has proven to be innately unjust and discriminatory.

This injustice, the union says has come about as a result of differential and discriminatory treatment among staff members who had applied for promotion since 2018.

“The university management has selectively chosen to promote certain members among our fellow colleagues retrospectively with full pay while in some cases, some equally deserving fellow staff members had been promoted but had to forfeit payment of certain years within their promotion threshold.

“Undoubtedly, these disproportionate promotions criteria poses an especially pernicious problem, which is, in every respect, innately unjust and discriminatory,” Lutaru said. Their interpretation is therefore that, there are colleagues who have benefitted from the discriminatory promotions criterion while others will suffer through non-remuneration commensurate with their promotions.

Discriminatory practices by the NUL management, the union further shows equally extend to other non-academic staff members.

“As the members of the NUL community, we, therefore, categorically demand the Vice Chancellor and NUL management to facilitate the redress of these inequalities evident in the manner of treatment among NUL employees,” Lutaru added.

 Furthermore, Lutaru accuses the management of poor governance, insinuating that the university is not managed according to the existing laws, statutes, ordinances, and other legally recognised regulations enacted by appropriate authorities.

For instance, the union argues, there is long train of un-statutory conduct and practice by the office of the Human Resource Director (HR), which have led them to register their concerns.