By Spy Uganda
International senior counsel George William Alenyo has dragged the manufacturer of Covidex herb Professor Patrick Ogwang to court with an order that all the monies collected from the drug be surrendered to the government through the consolidated fund.
According to Alenyo, Prof. Ogwang is not the real manufacturer of the drug thus accusing the government for failure to do due diligence to establish the true ownership of Covidex drug, failure to collect tax and remit it to the government coffers, failure to obtain environmental impact assessment of the impact of the ongoing extraction or exploitation of millions of the tree species expected to be used to make millions of vials of Covidex among others.
Meanwhile, Alenyo has sued Prof Ogwang alongside twelve other statutory bodies before the High Court Civil Division in Kampala, Those being sued together with Professor Ogwang are: National Drug Authority-NDA, Uganda National Bureau of Standards, National Environment Management Authority, National Forestry Authority, Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda Registration and Services Bureau, Pharmaceutical Society of Uganda, Jena Herbals Uganda Limited, Uganda Revenue Authority, Natural Chemotherapeutics Research Institute, Uganda Wildlife Authority and the Attorney General.
The petitioners 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.
The Covidex drug hit the market about a month ago with claims that it heals the novel coronavirus. It was later approved by the NDA last week as supportive treatment in management of viral infections and since then the prices for each 20ml bottle ranges between 6,000 and 100,000 Shillings depending on where you buy it due to increased demand.
But according to the evidence before the court, the petitioners argue that in 1986, the ruling government came to power and launched a ten-point program to lead the people of Uganda, and number six was provided for creating a vibrant health sector.
The evidence submitted adds that from 1986 to 2006, Uganda was a non-party state and all the National Resistance Movement programmes in Uganda were funded from the consolidated fund.
READ ALSO: Prof Ogwang Snabs NBS Covidex Interview After Call From ‘Above’ As Ownership Row With MUST Deepens!
It adds that in 1989, the government and the Republic of Cuba under the late Fidel Castro signed a Solidarity Agreement to benefit the people of Uganda and established Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda .
“In 2001, the government of Uganda with a World Bank facilitation established the Pharma Bio-Technology and Traditional Management Centre, one of the Eastern and Southern Africa Higher Education Centre of Excellence, promoting herbal and natural products in Africa”, the suit continues.
It also indicates that in June 2021, Ogwang, a public servant who draws his salary from the consolidated fund at MUST and the Pharma Bio Centre applied in his personal name and obtained clearance from the NDA to sell and personally collect revenue from a drug called Covidex, developed at the government of Uganda facilities and laboratories and with the staff of MUST and Pharma Bio Centre.
“The plaintiffs aver that actions of the 1st defendant (Ogwang) to attempt to own another’s (GoU’s) patent on Covidex in trust for The People of Uganda, is unlawful and the 1st defendant ought to be condemned to general damages and a permanent injunction to be issued against him to claim Covidex patent,” reads the petitioners’ document in part.
According to the petitioners through their lawyers of Katongole and Company Advocates, the government departments especially 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 Covidex revenue.
The suit accuses “the Attorney General for abdicating his role to ensure a constitutionally enacted legal framework for government’s share in Covidex proceeds,” and “the Public Service Commission in failing to regulate civil servants abusing their offices, government protocols and facilities for their personal benefit.”
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 the 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 13 respondents have already been summoned by the civil division registrar Jamson Karemani to file their defense within 15 days. Karemani has also allocated the file to the head of civil division judge Musa Ssekaana who is yet to fix it for hearing.
In his recent interview, Ogwang who is guarded by presidential guards and has since been stopped from carrying out any further interviews said he developed the Covidex formula more than 10 years ago from the Z. Gilleti and Warburgia Ugandensis plants to treat totally different diseases. He said the government did not even consider him as one of the herbal innovators when it made a call for innovations into treatment against Covid-19 last year.
According to Ogwang, he discovered Covidex treats Covid-19 after he tried the formula on his visiting American friend who’d contracted the virus in Uganda. Ogwang claims once given Covidex, his American friend got cured within two days. He also claims when he contracted Covid-19 last month, he used Covidex and got cured within a week in addition to other family members and friends. Even before approval, several people took to social media to give ‘testimonies’ about how Covidex had cured their family members.
“You know, plants have several compounds in them; one plant can have over 200 compounds. What’s most important is how you extract them, organize them to handle a particular disease. Knowing that this plant has antiviral properties, which in the villages are used against measles and certain coughs, and since Covid is a virus, I thought the two could be linked. One of my friends, an American professor I had invited to come to Mbarara University [of Science and Technology – MUST] to help us develop a certain programme. He had to leave everything and come live at MUST, to begin a new programme in clinical pharmacy. He came without pay,” Ogwang said.
“One day God put it in my heart, that ‘that formula there, which you are using for wounds in the mouth, dental pain, could help this man’; because, Covid stays in your nose, and in your throat; that’s where it multiplies itself initially before it goes to the lungs. If you can handle it from the nose and throat, you have weakened it,” he added.
