Officials from the Directorate of Government Analytical Laboratory (DGAL) have called on Parliament to expedite the processing of the Forensic and Scientific Analytical Service Bill, 2025, before the Committee on Defence and Internal Affairs.
They made the call on Wednesday, 25 February 2026, while appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (Central Government), on issues raised by the Auditor General for Financial Year 2024/2025. The session was chaired by Hon. Gorreth Namugga, the deputy chairperson.
According to the Commissioner of Criminalistics and Laboratory Services, Tarsisius Byamugisha, the Bill will support the legal use of forensic data as evidence in investigations conducted at a national level.
He noted that when the Police collect exhibits from a crime scene, many suspects are arrested, which often delays prosecution cases.
“With the database, instead of Police arresting 50 people over the same crime, they can search the crime scene and give us the exhibits. We will test them and search through the database to point out the actual people who were at the scene. That is why we are pushing this Bill,” Byamugisha said.
He added that DGAL has developed in-house databases for purposes including DNA and ballistics, which are used to effect quality control.
Hon. Joseph Ssewungu (NUP, Kalungu West County) said expediting the proposed law will enable the efficient supervision of all institutions providing private forensic data generation services.
“There are so many challenges happening now with families where many people are taking their children for DNA testing. I also recently got samples before burial of somebody, from a nun. All these are issues that must be addressed by the Bill, especially how evidence is produced, used and kept,” Ssewungu said.
Hon. Hope Nakazibwe (NUP, Mubende District Woman Representative) asked the officials to update the committee on the progress of generation of the national database.
“Parliament agreed that you prioritise database generation with financing of Shs178.66 billion. Have you been receiving money for the same and what have you done in that regard?” Nakazibwe asked.
The Chief Chemist at DGAL, Kepher Kuchana Kateu, said a study on the ‘allele frequency database for 21 autosomal short tandem repeats in the Ugandan population’, was recently conducted and has formed part of the database development.
“We carried out this study across the Ugandan population from the east, west, south and central regions. We have generated the genetic profiles of our population which can be used in the future. Presently, we have been using databases generated by other people,” Kateu explained.
He added that the Laboratory has taken steps to generate in-house databases besides those pertaining to DNA and ballistics.
“We have got a database on toxicology for poisons and one on pesticide residue, among others. All these are helping us to solve crimes that are committed at various scenes,” Kateu said.
