The national analytical laboratory has suspended testing of DNA because of a lack of reagents — a development that will further frustrate the quest for justice, one of the reasons testing was introduced in 2007.
Since May, the laboratory, located in Wandegeya, Kampala, has not carried out any tests. And according to Eric Atalao Dradrio, acting commissioner in the directorate of Government Analytical Laboratory, the situation is bound to worsen the backlog, which now stands at 288 cases.
“What we are doing now is that we are turning away people. The cases are accumulating. What that means is that there is a delay in justice,” Dradrio told The Observer.
He said the backlog requires 10 kits to clear, three of which cost Shs 80m. A single kit can test up to 200 DNA samples. The delay, he said, is caused by the stringent measures in the procurement of the reagents, which requires advertising for the services. Once a supplier is identified, an order is then placed for them.
“The Accountant General issued an instruction that there should be pre-shipment inspection. He did this because the contract was already running. It was a control measure in procurement,” Dradrio said.
Whereas pre-inspection is routine, it would appear that the Accountant General’s instruction means chemicals were being imported before certification, a practice that is irregular. The reagents are used in testing samples for both police cases (forensics) and general or paternity matters, with the latter accounting for a significant number of cases — meaning that a number of men in Uganda suspect that the children they have been told to have sired might not actually be their offspring.
Uganda launched DNA testing in 2007, and in just five years, 1,747 tests have been carried out, 784 of which are for proof of paternity and 963, for police investigations. Besides paternity and police matters, the lab also carries out testing on the advice of the Administrator General, and in stances where human remains cannot be identified, for instance in the case of fires, blasts or traffic accidents, where bodies are burnt or crushed beyond recognition.
How it is done
Clients seeking proof of paternity are required to pay Shs 400,000 before going through a mandatory counselling session, which Dradrio says is intended to prepare the seekers for any eventuality.
“These results have been known to break up families; people run mad! Imagine being told you are not your father’s son after knowing him as such for all your life; it would definitely affect you. That is why we encourage them against taking the tests unless they must,” Dradrio says.
It takes up to a month for the results to be known. Dradrio says there has been a considerable decline in the number of cases seeking paternity tests since 2008, which has affected the lab’s revenue. One of the reasons for this, he says, is the length of time anxious clients have to wait before knowing their fate, which is sometimes made longer by shortage of reagents.
“The figures should have been rising, but once you disappoint people, that’s what happens (decline in clients). Once reports are delayed, people cannot spread the gospel [to others to seek the lab’s services],” he says.