By Ritah Kemigisa
The Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Monica Musenero has defended herself before plenary this morning from allegations she misused funds for Covid-19 vaccine development under the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE) that she supervises.
In her submission, Musenero says the allegations made by the ad hoc committee investigating the utilization of the funds were false and not made in good faith.
According to Musenero, she has dedicated her life to fighting pandemics and rather dangerous disease outbreaks like Ebola, and Marburg among others in the pursuit to save the lives of people, and never before has her integrity and commitment to duty ever been questioned or have reason to be questioned.
She however says she will not be derailed by the accusations made against her and other scientists from their pursuit of developing vaccine research and development capacity in the country.
The committee report indicated that PRESIDE funds to the tune of Shs2.6b were not accounted for due to poor operational management.
Parliament has meanwhile adopted the report which among other things recommended that the presidential initiative is disbanded.
