Since losing his Mbarara MP seat in 2016, Dr. Medard Bitekyerezo never bothered seeking reelection. This was so because he began doing very well as soon as he became the chairman for Uganda national drug authority in 2017.
Former speaker of Uganda national assembly Rebecca Kadaga helped him lobby to get that job because he had chaired the assembly’s committee on health. He realized in the 9 years he headed UNDA that life here was much better than the hassles of being a struggling legislator to be urinated upon by voters.
He has been able to have development projects as UNDA chairman, which has enabled him to have financial stability. Being UNDA chairman exposed Dr. Medard to travel and training opportunities.
He was also able to learn more about the pharmaceutical world and to rub shoulders with wealthy pharma manufacturers in Uganda, Dubai, India and China.
He was also able to help his old friends get well-paying jobs for their jobless and sometimes would-be unemployable children and close relatives.
Examples include Katusimire Sarah who works in the HR unit at UNDA where she was connected by her relative, a professor, who is Dr. Medard’s OB from Mbarara high school.
She works in the HR unit and she isn’t the only one Dr. Medard was able to help land a job at UNDA-others include head procurement Patrick Okema, legal counsel Diana Kabuzire and Dora Namyalo, the very special one who had been working at CIPLA quality chemicals.
JBT who heads the HR unit was also aided by Dr. Medard to get the job at UNDA after being forced out of IDI. He did psychology at the university and yet he was able to get the job ahead of fellow applicants who had done HR studies at bachelors’ level and beyond.
All these staff members are grateful to Dr. Medard, the outgoing board chairman for what he did for them. Being NDA board chairman gave Dr. Medard chance to supervise and oversee regulation of powerful Ugandan entities like joint medical stores which handles drugs for all church owned hospitals in Uganda. Dr. Bilbard Baguma the boss at JMS became his close friend up to this day.
The most important benefit for Dr. Medard was that he was in position to become a director at the wealthy national medical stores of Uganda by virtue of being on the UNDA board as its chair.
Being national medical stores board member is a much more rewarding gig than being chairman for UNDA. No wonder Dr. Medard hasn’t known poverty in the last nine years and the same applies to Dr. Hanifa Ssengendo, the wife of opposition MP Latif Sebaggala.
These two have been sitting on the national medical stores board by virtue of being on the UNDA board. They are now going to lose both because their stay at national medical stores board would only be tenable for as long as they are reappointed and retained on the board of UNDA.
This is why these two are the most disappointed and annoyed over the IGG decision to block and halt their reappointment for another three years up to 2029.
Stakeholders now say that nine years is long enough adding that this is now time for others also to go to serve while eating on the boards of UNDA and that of the medical stores in Entebbe.
