The Ugandan judiciary on Monday indifferently disregarded a written directive by the country’s inspector general of government (IGG) by deploying a senior magistrate to go and swear in the new board for Uganda national drug authority.
In her 26th February letter addressed to the NDA top management, the IGG, as mandated under article 230 of the constitution, directed that the swearing in of the reappointed board members be HALTED until her investigations are completed.
The IGG had weeks earlier received a complaint that the board members especially board chairman Medard Bitekyerezo and the dental association representative Dr. Muhammed Mbabali had irregularly been reappointed.
The IGG said she needs time to first investigate the extent to which legal provisions and established practice rules requiring relevant constituencies to be consulted, cabinet approval to be obtained plus the certificate of financial compliance from the finance ministry had been adhered to by the minister while reappointing them.
The other concern was that the Interpol security vetting report which is mandatory hadn’t been obtained. Because of that and conflict of interest related concerns, the IGG halted the swearing in.
The IGG widely copied her letter halting the event to a number of offices including the head public service/cabinet secretary Lucy Nakyobe, the Attorney general, the minister of health, the permanent secretary ministry of health and the NDA executive secretary.
Even on Monday morning the IGG wrote a follow up letter re-enforcing her directives still making it clear that whoever goes ahead with the Monday inauguration would have committed an offence relating to disregarding lawful orders. The same was reported on the front page of New Vision which is the official national paper for Uganda.
But all this was disregarded when the magistrate, on Monday morning, unexpectedly turned up at hotel four points by Sheraton in Kololo to preside over the swearing in ceremony of the board members.
To ensure maximum secrecy for their clear illegality, the newly reappointed NDA board members instigated the hotel security to chase away several TV journalists who had come to cover the event.
They were told that the controversial swearing in ceremony was an internal matter of NDA to which no journalist was expected. As the magistrate arrived and headed straight to the small room that had been prepared for the secretive swearing in ceremony, the journalists were warned of dire consequences if they didn’t vacate the hotel premises and surroundings.
