KAMPALA – Dr. David Nahamya has been appointed Secretary to the Authority of National Drug Authority (NDA) effective August 1, 2019.
Dr. Nahamya was appointed acting Secretary to the Authority in February 2019 to replace Ms Donna Asiimwe Kusemererwa who was in kicked out of office following a court ruling.
He brings a wealth of experience to the position having joining NDA in April 2001 as an Inspector of Drugs, and later posted as Regional Inspector of Drugs Eastern Region. In 2006, he served as Regional Inspector of Drugs Central Region and later transferred to Head Office as Senior Inspector of Drugs in charge of Licensing Market Surveillance and Enforcement.
In 2017, he became the acting Head Drug Inspectorate Services and later appointed Director Inspectorate and Enforcement.
Dr. Nahamya is a pharmacist by profession and holds masters’ degrees in the fields of Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Havana, Health Economics from the University of Cape Town, and Business Administration from ESAMI.
The Court of Appeal in February ordered Ms Kusemererwa to vacate office immediately.
The order by the Court of Appeal followed a 2017 ruling by the High Court that the appointment of Ms Kusemererwa as the executive director of NDA in January 2016 was “unlawful, unjustifiable, null and void”.
Ms Kusemererwa had replaced Ms Kate Kikule who served as acting executive director following the sacking of Dr Gordon Sematiko at the peak of corruption scandals that were then being investigated at the drug authority.
In February 2015, Dr Sematiko, the then executive secretary/registrar, and Mr Dan Badebye, the head of finance at NDA, were fired for transferring $5m (about Shs14b) from the official authority account to an unauthorised fixed deposit account. Another official, Mr Adolf Baguma, was also sacked in relation to the same scam.
