The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr. Monica Musenero (pictured) has revealed that Dei Bio Pharma company, is set to start exporting drugs outside Uganda at the end of this year after receiving approvals from National Drug Authority.
Government has so far injected over Shs723Bn taxpayers money into the pharmaceutical company.
Musenero made the revelation while appearing before Parliament’s Committee on Government Assurance, where she had appeared to provide an update on the promises her Ministry made to Ugandans.
“We have partnered with Dei Bio Pharma, and Government has taken in shares. This is the biggest pharmaceutical facility on the continent of Africa, we hope to start shipping out medicines before the end of the year because National Drug Authority has cleared us,” explained Musenero.
The development comes at the time when recently, Leader of Opposition, Joel Ssenyonyi asked Government to reveal details of the agreement it signed with Dei Bio Pharma, after the owners of the company revealed plans to repay the Shs723Bn it obtained from Government yet at the time of approval of the funds, Government denied existence of such an agreement.
During the Committee meeting, Musenero also revealed that Uganda has so far received over Shs7.3Bn through sale of diagnostic kits to both Mulago National Referral hospital, and outside Uganda in a research that started at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
“When you go to Mulago Hospital now, that diagnostic kit used to test you is made here by our scientists and we have started making impact on the continent. We manufacture the proficiency panels for all these countries arising out of this work, which we started in 2020/21 and this has brought us about US$2m (Shs7,301,500,000) in revenue,” said Musenero.
The Minister revealed that the Ministry has been able to attain all this success by emphasizing what she termed as “Brutal integrity” by ridding the Ministry of any corruption tendencies, in order not to compromise the quality of products released on the market.
She explained, “We have learnt from nations that have used science that the moment you bring, even a tiny bit of corruption in Science, Technology and Innovation, so once corruption comes from decision making, financial things, it will show up in your product. So since we are aiming to sell products, we have put there what we call brutal integrity.”
Minister Musenero also revealed that although many Ugandans criticized her Space project as wastage of money, she defended the project describing it as a strategic project for Uganda’s future noting, “Many people have been telling me, Musenero why are you wasting time in Space when Uganda is still down here? This is a strategic intervention, it also has a big economy built around it, but it is a very strategic intervention, especially in the times where we live.”
