PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni has stopped Makerere University from increasing the retake fees that sparked off a violent strike last Friday.

The strike continued yesterday and lecture rooms, canteens, restaurants and shops, in and around the university remained closed. The university remained tense as riot police fired tear gas at rioting students.

It took the intervention of the Inspector General of Police, Maj. Gen. Kale Kayihura and the students' Guild President, Mr Maurice Henry Kibalya, to restore order to the university.

Kibalya told students that after a meeting on Sunday night, President Museveni asked the university administration to make payment for retake fees optional.

"In the meeting, Museveni asked management not to make students pay what they cannot afford," Kibalya said.

"The President warned the university administration to restrain from making Makerere an economic oriented institution but focus more on academic development," Kibalya added.The university management spent the whole of yesterday in a crisis meeting to review the President's proposal.

"The President also asked Makerere officials to allow students retaking papers to do private reading and revision and only turn up for exams," Kibalya said. The university said the fee had been increased to cater for costs that would be incurred in teaching and marking students exams and tests.

The meeting was attended by top university officials including the Chancellor, Prof. Apolo Nsibambi, his deputy, Prof. Livingstone Luboobi, Ministry of Education officials and Makerere guild executives. Kayihura said the President had asked the university to introduce supplementary exams instead of making students retake exams.

"The president did not even know what retakes are because in our times we had to do supplementary exams," he said.

But Luboobi said in a statement yesterday that the fee has only been suspended for two weeks until the University Council meets to discuss the matter.

"On Friday November 11, a meeting was held between the university administrative staff, officials of the ministries of Finance and Education and the student leaders where it was resolved that the retake fee be suspended for two weeks until the Council meets to discuss the issue,"Luboobi said.

Luboobi added that an emergency Council meeting will be held this Thursday over the retake fee. "In the meantime, the university management, including members of the Senate, deans, directors and other academic staff, is meeting and consulting within its self to quantify and categorize the retakes for the consideration by Council," Luboobi said.

Luboobi said that the strike was regrettable because the students would have taken a more peaceful approach to solving their grievances. He said the university administration had used all avenues available to amicably discuss the retake fees at the management, Senate and Council levels, all of which have student representatives.

Students on Friday went on strike protesting increased retake fees from shs 6,000 to shs 120,000 per paper. The strike ended into the death of one first year student of Information Technology, Ibrahim Ssengendo.

Meanwhile, 24 students who were arrested and detained at Wandegeya police station following the Friday strike have been released on bond. The release took place in the early afternoon after Kayihura visited the police station.

"We have to release the students under the law to allow them prepare for their forthcoming exams," Kayihura told journalists at Wandegeya police station. " This is not the kind of police work I've come to do, mine will be dealing with pre empting and detecting conflicts before they get out of hand," Kayihura said.

The students are required to report back to police on November 24.

Kibalya appealed to students to resume their classes now that their colleagues have been released. Earlier students said they would continue with the demonstrations until their detained colleagues are released.

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