Medical association, NDA protest govt paternity lab's dual mandate

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The Uganda Medical Association (UMA) has sounded the alarm over a controversial provision in the Forensic Evidence Bill 2024, citing what it describes as a conflict of interest.

UMA President, Herbert Luswata, raised this on December 18, 2024, during an interaction with the defence and internal affairs committee of Parliament chaired by Wilson Kajwengye (Nyabushozi county, NRM).

Clause 2 of the Bill designates the Government Analytical Laboratory (GAL) as the national referral forensic facility, responsible for providing evidence admissible in courts of law while simultaneously granting the directorate sweeping powers to regulate other private entities in the same domain.

Clause 4 of the Forensic Evidence Bill 2024 further extends the mandate of the Directorate of Government Analytical Laboratory (DGAL), requiring it to conduct research, and laboratory analysis and provide expert advice to the Government on a range of critical forensic disciplines. These include forensic toxicology, forensic biology, DNA analysis, illicit drugs, ballistics, questioned documents, forensic chemistry, food safety, drugs, and occupational health.

Misstep

However, while addressing MPs on Wednesday, UMA president, Herbert Luswata, said this creates a conundrum as DGAL cannot have the cake and eat it at the same time.

“They are providing a service but at the same time, they are a regulator. So, who is going to regulate the Government Analytical Laboratory or is it going to regulate other people and for it shouldn’t be regulated?” Luswata posed.

“We think if DGAL is becoming a regulator, let it take on one role as a regulator. If they have the equipment, at DGAL, it can be used as a tiebreaker in case people have done tests in other labs and are questioning the results. Maybe DGAL this time around should be coming in to re-analyse as a reference to give the final results and not providing the primary services. Because if you give me the primary service as DGAL and I say, I don’t trust these results, I can’t go anywhere,” he added.

Luswata called for an independent oversight body to regulate the GAL and other forensic laboratories to ensure impartiality and accountability.  

Similar concerns were echoed by the National Drug Authority (NDA) in its submission to the committee earlier on. The body was led by William Tamale.

“We propose that this clause of the Bill be deleted to avoid dual regulation and conflict with the National Drug Policy and Authority Act. Furthermore, we propose that clause four should be amended to restrict the functions of the directorate to forensic purposes,” Tamale said.

Accreditation of forensic labs

Under the proposed law, analytical laboratories seeking to provide forensic services shall be required to register with DGAL. Under Clause 23, applicants must pay a fee set by the Minister through regulations.

Subsection 3 stipulates that DGAL will only register laboratories with qualified staff and requisite facilities. Registered labs will be listed in a DGAL-maintained registry, enabling them to offer forensic services admissible in court.

On the other hand, private labs not registered with DGAL will be restricted to providing general analytical services.

Legal implications

Pathologist and Mbarara University of Science and Technology lecturer, Dr Simeon Eloba, warned that if the aforementioned provision kicks into action, forensic evidence from foreign jurisdictions or local facilities, regardless of superiority, would not be admissible in court as long as they are not accredited by DGAL. He was speaking to New Vision Online on Wednesday.

This, he stressed would inadvertently undermine the integrity of the justice system and the use of internationally recognized forensic practices.

“That would simply mean that the Government has ringfenced, they have found a way of being the only ones with the evidence manufactured for the courts of law, which I think is bad. Looking that there is already an issue of bureaucracy in our country, you find that DGAL has one laboratory. Yes, in the law, they envision having some regional centres but it would mean that evidence would take longer to be obtained for cases that require evidence. Meaning justice will be delayed and not served,” Eloba said.

Analytical services

Several public and private facilities provide a range of analytical services such as DNA also called genetic testing to ascertain the paternity of children.

Appearing before the same committee on Tuesday, DGAL director general, Kepher Kuchana Kateu, painted a smiling portrait of the revenue situation before the end of the second quarter.

"A set of three — that is, mother, father and child — each pay sh250,000 [total sh750,000 for DNA testing]. When it is a set of two, maybe a father and a child and the mother is not yet there or dead or is not informed, it is sh250,000 each, which is sh500,000,” Kuchana stated.  

“We did this and we had a spike in requests for DNA. I don’t know, the head of accounts can assist us, but it was over half a billion in a space of only three months,” added the DGAL chief.

MPs speak out

Kajwengye said perhaps the reason for gazetting GAL as a national referral facility could be to accentuate service delivery.

“The intention of the Government is they are going to equip DGAL to have more equipment…Just like say Kampala International Hospital has superior equipment but people will prefer that you have gone through a national referral hospital where it is assumed that you have super specialised doctors,” Kajwengye said.