President Yoweri Museveni has directed Water and Environment Minister Sam Cheptoris to work with his Local Government colleague Raphael Magyezi to fire all gombolola (Sub Couty) and Muruka (Parish) chiefs who failed to stop encroachment on wetlands.
In a letter to Minister Cheptoris, Museveni explains that it would be suicidal for people to encroach on wetlands, steep mountain ridges, shorelines, and river banks especially in the wake of rising water levels that recently disrupted life on landing sites. Weeks ago, a floating island interrupted power generation at Owen Falls Dam, causing a national power blackout.
Museveni reminded Cheptoris that government “had to undertake a lot of expenses to clear these floating masses” and “we were lucky they did not destroy the dam.” He noted that while environmentalists had initially written off the floating masses as water weed, it was later discovered that this was a shoreline that had been hewed off as a result of rising water levels and encroachment on the lake by farmers who had grown yams and cassava, among other crops, on the shoreline.
The President was disappointed that an environmental plan that had been put in place to protect wetlands, steep mountain ridges, shorelines, and river banks had been “ignored universally and we are beginning to see the consequences.”
President Museveni’s letter directing removal of wetland enchroachers across the country
“I am, therefore, directing you to remove all the people on the wetlands, shorelines, riverbanks and government forests – except the historical ones of Busoga-Bukedi and Kigyezi that were misled by the earlier governments of those days,” he ordered. Those governments are the ones that introduced the wrong culture of growing rice in our precious wetlands and misled our people of Bukedi and parts of Busoga, and also the culture of growing crops in the swamps in Kigyezi.”
Advising that the encroachers in these three regions be helped to shift to fish farming, Museveni described other groups of encroachers as “conscious liars” who “must be removed.” He gave the example of those who had encroached on Busemba swamps by ignoring government warnings. “All these are recent encroachers and in spite of our advice,” he said.
He then ordered: “You should not only remove the encroachers, but should, working with Local Government, ensure that Muruka and Gombolola chiefs who never took action against the encroachers should be dismissed.”
Credit: mulengeranews.com
