Court Orders NDA Boss to Vacate Office Immediately

Donna Asiimwe Kusemererwa, the National Drug Authority Executive Secretary has Thursday been ordered to quit office henceforth by the Court of appeal in Kampala.

Kusemererwa was appointed in January 2016 to head the authority and replaced Kate Kikule who served as acting executive director following the sacking of Dr Gordon Sematiko.

Sematiko and Dan Badebye, the then head of finance at NDA, were fired in February 2015, for allegedly transferring about Shs14b) from the official authority account to an unauthorised fixed deposit account.

However, Florence Nakachwa, the former Head of Drug Assessment and Registration at the authority, filed an application challenging her appointment.

She argued that Kusemererwa’s appointment was inconsistent with Section 54(2) of the NDA Act, thus illegally occupying the office.

In his ruling on September 15, Justice Stephen Musota of the Civil Division of the High Court, said the appointment was unlawful and unjustifiable.

Kusemererwa would later file an appeal in the Court of appeal, challenging her removal from office by the Civil Division, but Court has instead upheld the earlier decision and directed her quit office with immediate effect.