Godfathers, politics eating up wetland

In recent years, much of the wetland area has been taken by factory builders, large scale rice and flower farmers, and industrial sand miners. Usually they dump soil in the wetland and did water drainage canals to kill it off. They make chemicals and pharmaceuticals, metalwork, beverages, textiles, oil and gas, leather tanning, and more.

Degradation of wetlands has, among other effects, weakened the wetlands’ capacity to retain water and control floods. Lake water is finding its way in areas where people have settled close to the shores and river banks.

Kampala City no longer has an effective natural wastewater cleaning ecosystem. The vegetation, which is the earth’s natural cleaner – receiving human waste, processing nutrients in the water, and releasing wastewater downstream that is filtered of harmful bacteria and sediments that contaminate drinking water, is gone.

Encroachment on the Nakivubo Channel catchment area has reduced its filtration of the sewage that drains constantly from Kampala city into Murchison Bay – where drinking water for Kampala, Wakiso and Mukono districts is sourced. Consequently, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation must spend more money to clean the water to avoid water-borne diseases. The corporation has been forced to move its pipes deeper into the lake to get less contaminated water.

Dodgy law enforcers

Uganda’s 1995 constitution and 1998 Land Act make it illegal to own lands and forbid building and farming in wetlands. But they are ignored by encroachers ard rarely enforced by responsible government agencies.

Technocrats who are supposed to implement the law and presidential directives that protect wetlands hide under legal technicalities such as the permits and titles brandished by investors. A verification exercise done in 2014 mainly in Kampala and Wakiso districts showed that over 17,000 land titles had been awarded over wetlands.

The Uganda Land Commission, traditional Kingdoms and District Land Boards often lease wetlands to private owners, contrary to the laws.

Wetlands in Uganda are managed by the Wetlands Management Department within the Ministry of Water and Environment. But they often claim wetland boundaries are often unmarked and unclear.

The government watchdog NEMA which should be keeping count is shy and quiet and careful not to upset the appointing authority.

Under the law, before constructing a factory, an investor must get an approved Environmental Impact Assessment Report and certificate from NEMA. And the Uganda Investments Authority which handles factory owners says all factories are approved by NEMA.

Often times, the offending factories get titles to wetlands from Uganda Land Commission, or the Ministry of Lands, and NEMA is cautious not to reject the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) – done by the investors using environment practitioners. When cornered, NEMA says all factories constructed were assessed and cleared.

Ignore Museveni directives

Meanwhile President Museveni continues to issue directives that will be ignored.

In his annual State of the Nation Address on June 04 he directed the army to take aerial maps of wetland areas to show the factories already in the wetlands or being built, so that no new ones will be added.

The government has previously said that titles awarded over wetlands would be cancelled but that has never happened.

Museveni’s directives appear pointless. He also said the District Chief Accounting Officers, Gombolola chiefs, and the Gombolola Internal Security Officers (GISOs) in these areas will be held accountable. But does he not know that these are the same government officials who look the other way when so-called investors encroach on wetlands in defiance of the law?

And this was not the first time the President was directing about the same. The President has been directing eviction of encroachers on wetlands for a long time.

In 2014 the government directed NEMA and Ministry of Lands to cancel all land titles in wetlands after the promulgation of the 1995 Constitution. However none of the tittles has been cancelled.

While commissioning a Shs3.5 billion water project in Kyamulibwa Sub-county, Kalungu District, in 2015, for instance, Museveni spoke of the government’s plan to evict wetland encroachers countrywide, saying the country risks losing its water sources and exposing citizens to adverse effects of climatic change.

In December 2019, while in Jinja, the president warned the general public and investors against encroaching on wetlands. In the same month the President ordered any encroachers on wetlands and forest reserves to vacate immediately before they are forcefully evicted. He also ordered the cancellation of land titles issued to Chinese companies in the Lwera wetlands in Masaka which are a hive of sand mining and rice growing.

This February, during the 39th Tarehe Sita celebrations in Nakaseke district, the President again ordered government officials to ensure that no new factories are setup in the wetlands. Nothing has changed.

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