The National Drug Authority (NDA) has seized drugs worth over 70 million shillings from seven suspects including a newly elected LC 1 chairperson ,from Oyam district during a weekend enforcement operation.
Parading the suspects to the media on Monday, the NDA spokesman Abiaz Rwamwiri said the seven were found with several drugs including anti-malarials, ARVs, pain killers, anti-hypertensive medication, antiepileptic drugs and sundries including gloves, test kits and syringes.
ON interrogation, he says they confessed to have carried the medicines from health facilities using caskets and dustbins.Akali Alfred Ayom, the Senior Inspector of Drugs Enforcement at the authority told URN that to do arrests, they followed a lead from Kampala to a one Kizito who operates an illegal pharmacy in Oyam town.
Kizito who was found with government drugs marked ‘Not for Sale’ would then lead them to other suspects including Samuel Okopo, the LC Chairperson in Minakulu town council and health workers in Atipe Health Center III and Anyeke Health Center IV. Rwamwiri says the authority has in the last two years recovered drugs worth fifteen billion shillings through such operations where workers in government health facilities connive to steal drugs and sell them to private dealers including in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
While this trend is partly to blame for the perennial drug shortages in public hospitals, Rwamwiri said that experts at the authority are worried about the safety of such medicines after they have been stolen since many are kept in conditions that compromise their quality. For some of the drugs he displayed at the press conference, expiry dates had been wiped off as dealers tried to erase the government of Uganda labels.
The suspects are set to be arraigned before the Standards, Utilities and Wildlife Court in Makindye as they face charges of illegal possession of government stores and illegal possession of classified drugs without a license from the National Drug Authority. URN