By Melanie Aanyu,

The committee that was established to investigate the utilization of funds meant to facilitate the COVID-19 vaccine development by the Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Dr. Monica Musenero has pinned the Minister saying that the process was marred with irregularities.

Xavier Kyooma, the Chairperson of the Committee on Science, technology, and Innovation presented the findings to the House yesterday during the plenary sitting.

The committee was set up in November 2021 to investigate allegations of irregularities regarding the utilization of funds for Covid-19 vaccine development by the Presidential Scientific Initiative on Epidemics (PRESIDE).

PRESIDE, a brainchild of Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is supervised by Dr. Monica Musenero, who was a Presidential Advisor on Epidemics at the time it was unveiled.

The investigation followed a report by Ntungamo Municipality MP Yona Musinguzi who noted that following the Covid-19 pandemic, a group of scientists in 2020 convinced the President that they could produce a vaccine for COVID-19 and they went ahead and drew big sums of money.

He said that in 2020, they drew USD 20 billion under PRESIDE.
Musinguzi added that Musenero had received another 50 Billion Shillings after convincing the President that she would ensure the production of a vaccine,among other issues.