Lawyer George William Alenyo has sued the inventor of the COVIDEX supplementary drug, Professor Patrick Ogwang.
Alenyo is seeking orders that Ogwang is not the lawful proprietor of COVIDEX and therefore should remit monies collected to the consolidated fund.
Ogwang was sued alongside twelve statutory bodies before the High Court Civil Division in Kampala for alleged failure perform their statutory duties such as failure to do due diligence to establish the true ownership of COVIDEX drug, failure to collect tax and remit it to government coffers, among other cases.
Those being sued together with Professor Ogwang are: National Drug Authority-NDA, Uganda National Bureau of Standards – UNBS, National Environmental Authority, National Forestry Authority, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, among others.
The petitioners also fault the Attorney General for representative action for the acts and omissions of government officials, public officials and civil servants in various offices for failing to ensure that COVIDEX funds and revenue are placed in the consolidated fund.
Petitioners, through their lawyers of Katongole and Company Advocates, claim that the Auditor General’s department failed to audit government funding to COVIDEX and other viral research, and also failed to institute an accounting system to collect and receive its revenue.
The petitioners now want a declaration that the COVIDEX drug is a proprietary patent for the government of Uganda, having been developed on government funds, premises, laboratories and by government public servants paid salaries from the consolidated fund.
They also want court to order the Uganda Revenue Authority to revert all tax issues related to Covidex drugs to the government of Uganda under the Public Finance Act and close all taxation and revenue accounts in the names of Ogwang and his company Jena Herbals Uganda Limited.
All the 13 respondents have already been summoned by the Civil Division Registrar Jamson Karemani to file their defense within 15 days.
He has also allocated the file to the head of Civil Division, Justice Musa Ssekaana who is yet to fix it for hearing.
