Reviving Katwe salt factory

UDB launches ambitious hunt for investor

Kampala, Uganda | PATRICIA AKANKWATSA | A cool breeze and a pungent smell like rotten eggs is what welcome you to the shores of Lake Katwe. That is the hydrogen sulfide; a poisonous and corrosive gas that occurs naturally in the salt caves of the volcanic crater Lake. But the men and women scrapping the bottom of the lake for salt cannot smell the gas because, after working in it for some time, it kills their sense of smell.

So the women continue using hoes to scoop the salt as the men extract the rock salt. The water in this lake is 60% salty. And in a region that is semi-arid, with soils that do not favour agricultural activities, salt mining has become the major economic activity in Kasese district, western Uganda.

Salt is mined from small ponds known as pans. Pans are man-made features around Lake Katwe but the salt forms naturally within them. These ponds which are about 10 by 12 feet or so wide and 3 to 5 feet deep are the `plots’ demarcating sections of the shores of the lake owned by private individuals or families. Some are inherited from parents to children. The salt brine is not manufactured neither is it processed. Miners depend on the natural salt which naturally forms within their pans.

Mining in the center of the lake is only done by licensed individuals. An association for Rock Salt Extraction issues the licenses for extraction of rock salt from the middle of the lake. Everything appears orderly and designed to ensure that the salt is extracted without causing its extinction.

Hope for the factory revival.

Salt mining at Lake Katwe is one of Uganda’s oldest industries. For centuries people have mined the salt by hand as their major means of livelihood. Mining has also played a significant political and economic role in the history of the area.

According to Katwe Information Tourism Centre Lake Katwe is the chief producer of salt in Uganda. It was formed as a result of volcanic eruption about 10,000 years ago. The lake is about 9km wide and very shallow, with the deepest point being six feet. There is a raised settlement near the lake which people from neighboring areas who came to buy salt called “Katwe” hence the name.

This is an area of crater lakes and cones. Lake Katwe, Lake Munyanyange, and Lake Kasenyi are among the biggest. All of them are said to have a salt rock deep below them but only Lake Katwe and Lake Kasenyi can produce salt. The lakes are shallow depressions where the salt liquid brine collects. This is because the two lakes have streams that bring fresh water to the lake which fills numerous vents or holes which sink to the main salt rock below and dissolve part of the rock it into salt brine. Volcanic pressure then pushes the compressed liquid back on top where it is dissolved to become a salt solution which solidifies into salt when the water in it evaporates. There are three major types of salt mined from Lake Katwe; the crude salt for animal leak, edible salt (sodium chloride) and unwashed salt.

Starting in the late 1970s, the government development agency, Uganda Development Corporation (UDC), built a factory in the area to process the salt brine. Construction was interrupted by the wars of the period, but the factory was completed in 1982. However, it operated for less than a year and close when the salt corroded the machinery.
Today, bats, rats, and other creatures are the only inhabitants of the factory on the edges of Lake Edward which is about half a kilometre from Lake Katwe. Meanwhile Uganda spends billions of dollars importing salt. It is an undesirable situation that Uganda Development Bank (UDB) wants to change. It wants to revive the long dead factory.

“As a bank, we are involved in a lot of activities and one of them is project preparation,” says Mohamud Andama, the UDB director for investment, “With this we connect an idea and turn it into a bank proposal for a potential funder.”

He says the government identified the revival of the salt factory on Lake Katwe as an investment project but there has been no progress.

“This where we stepped in,” says Andama, “We are doing a feasibility study of revamping the factory and if we find that it is a viable activity, then we write a proposal.”

What locals say

“I have been mining salt since 1989 and the pay is good,” says Eliason Bwambale a salt miner. He says on a good day, he can get around US$150.

“That is not bad,” he says, “but because we use rudimentary methods to extract salt, we get hurt. We normally use hands and go into the lake bare footed. Some of these salt rocks have sharp edges that may injure our legs and arms when we are scrapping the salt.”

“I would be very glad if some investors came in and renovated the factory because that way, work can be made efficient and easy,” he adds.

Miners also say that the weather patterns have not been favorable to them. Salt is only extracted during the dry season that is from January to March and from July to September when there is much sunshine.

“We want to find an appropriate way of extracting salt during the wet season. This can be done by industrialisation, using modern solar panels to evaporate the salt water like how it is done in other parts of the world instead of depending on the sunshine,” says Nicholas Kagongo; one of the custodians and environmentalists at the salt mines. He says they welcome the idea of reviving the factory because they need to improve the salt mining sector.

“With industrialisation, we can be able to get a brand because there we can produce purified salt that meets the world standards and get market. Thus, boosting the salt mining activity,” he told The Independent.

About Lake Katwe

According to Katwe Information Tourism Centre, Lake Katwe is about 550 kilometers west of Kampala, in Kasese District, Kabatoro/Katwe Town Council. It is one of about 52 explosion crater lakes found in Queen Elizabeth national park.

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