In her latest letter, dated Monday 2nd March, the IGG makes it clear that former Mbarara MP Medard Bitekyerezo is no longer the board chairman of National Drug Authority (NDA) yet the cantankerous former legislator has continued convening controversial meetings holding himself out to be exercising NDA powers, which he doesn’t have anymore.
His contract as board chairman ended on 20th February and it hasn’t yet been renewed effectively. His purported reappointment to serve for another three years was put in jeopardy on 26th February when the IGG exercised her powers under article 230 of the constitution and directed the NDA management to halt the swearing in ceremony of the reappointed board members, which had been slated for 2nd March Monday at four points hotel in Kololo.
However, convinced that nothing can happen to him because he comes from Mbarara and can talk to the president anytime he wants, Bitekyerezo ignored the IGG’s directives and went ahead to convene his members to a secretive meeting at four points in Kololo.
They converged in a secret room and waited for the magistrate who Bitekyerezo kept bragging would defiantly come over and swear them in whether the IGG likes it or not.
The journalists turned up at four points hotel to cover the event, which the IGG had already declared illegal in her follow up letter of Monday morning, but the cameramen were furiously chased away by the NDA board members who made it clear that this was an internal NDA matter to which no media camera was going to be accepted.
The journalists, who insisted on recording videos since the swearing-in of the board is a matter of public interest, were told to leave or else risk to have their cameras smashed and themselves being beaten up like chicken thieves.
The journalists tried to resist because they were expecting the IGG to deploy security to arrest Bitekyerezo and other defiant board members like it was done some years ago by the former IGG Irene Mulyagonja, when she arrested Kyambogo University board members who insisted on having their meeting even after the same had been halted by the inspectorate. This is a developing story.
One of the annoying questions the clearly expired board members refused to answer from the assembled journalists was the capacity in which Bitekyerezo was convening his banned Monday meeting to discuss the business of NDA, a government entity over which they don’t have any authority anymore, following the expiry of their mandate as board members which happened on 20th February.