(adds court charges, paragraphs 1, 5-6)

By Tim Cocks

KAMPALA, May 22 (Reuters) - A Ugandan court charged a former health minister on Tuesday with abuse of office and embezzling money donated for children's vaccines, and police tried to track down his whereabouts after arresting his two deputies.

The manhunt and arrests follow a report by a government watchdog accusing former health minister Jim Muhwezi of abuse of office, causing financial loss and theft.

The 200-page report also named his deputies Mike Mukula and Alex Kamugisha in two separate thefts which netted $1.63 million from a gift of $3.86 million to the Health Ministry from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.

Police said Mukula and Kamugisha were arrested but they were still trying to find Muhwezi and a fourth official charged by the court, Alice Kaboyo, former private secretary to President Yoweri Museveni.

"Jim Muhwezi, as minister of health, did unlawfully ... in abuse of his office endorse ... requisitions for the use of (vaccine money), in total disregard of the laws ... governing the disbursement of public funds," said the charge sheet.

Other charges against the four included causing financial loss, embezzlement and forgery of documents.

A diplomat, who declined to be named, saw police vehicles surround Muhwezi's house in an upmarket Kampala suburb.

There are persistent rumours he may have evaded the government's security forces and fled to Britain.

Muhwezi was unavailable for comment. A former close ally of Museveni, he has accused the president of manipulating investigations in a smear campaign.

Under local and international pressure, Museveni fired Muhwezi and his deputies last year over a separate corruption scandal involving cash from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The Global Fund suspended five grants worth $367 million in 2005 over the case, but no one was prosecuted.

AlertNet news is provided by