About US

The Bursary Department of the University is the financial engine room of the University, headed by the Bursar who, according to Section 6(2) of the Universities Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1993, is the Chief Finance Officer of the University and is responsible to the Vice-Chancellor for the day-to-day administration and control of the financial affairs of the University.

By the latest restructuring of the Department, there are now four main divisions in the Department as depicted by the attached organogram. These are:

A. Bursar’s Office:
This comprises the Bursars Office and the Sections that are responsible to the Bursar. These include:
1. Computer Room: This is where University staff salaries are electronically processed. It also houses the main servers of some application software.
2. Investment Section: The function of the Section is to manage the investment portfolio of the University. However, since the decision to pass all investments to University Endowment Fund, the Section also monitors these investments and endowments. It invests endowment funds for generation of returns with which chairs and prizes are run.
3. Assets and Insurance: The Section is responsible for managing the various insurance policies.
4. Passages: This Section attends to all forms of human and cargo passages including visa processing, travel ticket procurement and cargo clearing.
5. Works and Maintenance Accounts Office: This Section is attached to Works Department to facilitate processing of procurement, capital and store transactions.
6. Finance Offices: These are “mini Bursaries” attached to one or more faculties to facilitate the processing of financial transactions. Each of the Finance Offices has a representation of almost every section of the Bursary as they perform the same functions as the Main Bursary. They are headed by Finance Officers who, necessarily, are of Chief Accountant grade.

By design, and at the stage of the University going collegiate in the early nineties, these offices were supposed to be headed by Deputy Bursars. Each College Finance Office would have been the similitude of what obtains in the College of Medicine, enthroning decentralization, promoting efficiency, but emphasizing transparency and accountability. The University is revisiting “collegiate project” again with a view to seeing it to a logical conclusion in order to take advantage of decentralization. This is emphasized in the Strategic Plan.

Please note that each Finance Office also manages the payroll and other financial records of all the staff in its faculty or faculties.

Thus there are:
1. Finance Office, Faculties of Arts, Social Sciences and Law, including Institute of African Studies and CEPACS
2. Finance Office, Faculties of Agriculture and Forestry, Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy
3. Finance Office, Faculty of Education including Institute of Education and ARCIS
4. Finance Office, Faculties of Science and Technology, including Zoological Garden
5. Finance Office, Postgraduate School
6. Finance Department of the College of Medicine: This is headed by a Financial Controller/Deputy Bursar and is expected to conduct financial operations and relate with main Bursary in accordance with the College enabling Act.

Finance Office, Education has been responsible for overseeing the operations of the Accounts Office of Distance Learning Centre for years. However, in view of the growth of the Centre’s operations and its position in the University scheme of things, the Accounts Office has just been upgraded to a Finance Office status, with a an experienced Chief Accountant posted there to head the Finance function.

B. Finance Division
This is headed by Deputy Bursar (Finance), and is responsible for the following Sections:
1. Budget Section: This Section is responsible for data collection, collation and analysis for budget preparation and budget reports.
2. Final Accounts Section: Posting into books of accounts and the preparation of financial statements and accompanying schedules are the main functions of this Section.
3. Expenditure Control Section: This Section is the nerve-centre of the public accounting system. It maintains ledger accounts for all votes and responsible for posting allocations and commitments, balancing up the entries to arrive at the closing balances. The Section is responsible for making quarterly reports available to vote controllers/accounting officers. Payment vouchers are raised here.
4. Reconciliation Section: This Section obtains Cashbooks and bank statements from the Cash Office and carries out re conciliation on a monthly basis.
5. Cash Office: This is the heart of the Bursary Treasury Division. The Section receives income on behalf of the University, lodges same in relevant bank accounts and also effects payments for goods and services.

C. Administrative Services Division
This is the arm of Bursary that deals with issues relating to staff matters and pensions. It comprises:
1. Salary Section: This handles issues relating to salaries of University staff in the Central Administration. They prepare inputs for the computerized payroll system.
2. Loans and Advances Section: This is the Section that handles processing and recovery of staff loans and advances. It also manages the records of loans for which the University has given commitment for ‘at source” recovery from staff salary.
3. Correspondence Section: This Section is the Bursary “Registry”, as it manages the payroll and financial records of all the files of the staff in the Central Administration and all retirees. Often, Bursary records have helped the Establishments Division of the Registry in solving issues arising from multiple dates of birth, multiple dates of first appointment etc.
4. Pensions Section: The Section manages pensioners’ records and funds.

D. Grants Division
This is the Section that administers internal and external grants in the University. It also has the custody of funds belonging to some units of the University. By the new structure, it consists of:

1. Major Grants Section,
2. Minor Grants Section and
3. Third Party Fund Section