Last week, US mission officials in Uganda made claims about money Washington had injected in Uganda’s fight against ebola virus disease.
Press reports quoted the US Ambassador Natalie E. Brown saying the US is channeling its financial assistance to fight Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) through implementing partners, rather than the Ugandan government because it does not want the money to end in the “wrong pockets”.
She added that the Biden administration had donated money to the tune of Shs85bn.
However, officials at the Ministry of Health questioned this over with Primary Healthcare state Minister, Margaret Muhanga revealing on the floor of Parliament that the department was not aware of those declaring support for the fight against ebola on social media.
Following this, the Minister of Health, Dr Jane Ruth Aceng, called for an accountability meeting set for Thursday this week.
She revealed that for proper accountability, the press would be invited to cover proceedings of the meeting to make sure every coin injected in the fight against ebola is well used.
However, we have learnt that when they US mission officials were told of the media presence, they chicken out claiming the fourth estate is biased against them.
In order to avoid the accountability meeting, claiming the breakdown of these budgets is classified and cannot be discussed before the media, sources say the officials asked for a meeting with President Yoweri Museveni which is being held on Monday.
This came after the Minister insisted that an accountability meeting with media present be held.
Analysts have questioned why the US mission opted out of the meeting that would give Ugandans and the world a sneakpeak into how the funds dedicated to fighting ebola were being used.
