Citizens’ Concern Africa (CICOA) has today re-launched a campaign that seeks to stop degradation of the Lwera Swamp in Lukaya Town Council, Kalungu District code named “Save Lwera from Rice growing and sand mining”. The first campaign launched in 2019, involved an online petition and non-online which were signed by more than 4,000 people.
The latest campaign has been prompted by the destruction of River Katonga Bridge and Kampala -Masaka highway by floods, resulting into travel chaos and increased costs for motorists. Traffic has now been diverted to the Mpigi Villa-Maria road, which is longer, by about 56km, according to the Bus Operators and Drivers’ Association
“The Uganda Wetlands Atlas puts the cost of wetland destruction at nearly Shs2 billion annually, and contamination of water resources, which is partly caused by reduced buffering capacity of wetlands near open water bodies, to nearly Shs38 billion annually. It’s against this background that Citizens’ Concern Africa (CICOA), has embarked on this campaign of protection of wetlands”, says CICOA Executive Director Mr Andrew Mafundo.
CICOA has previously engaged local government environment officers to explain how this swamp destruction was allowed and what they are doing to stop it. “We also tasked ministry of water and environment to explain why Chinese investors were allowed to reclaim this important swamp and provide to us terms of issuance of permit. We also engaged the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) on failure to monitor the implementation of conditions issued within the permits.
One of the major achievements from the previous campaign was that, the president of Uganda Yoweri Kaguta Museveni while visiting the neighboring district of Masaka, noted that he had heard about this Lwera swamp destruction by Chinese investors and ordered that the relevant ministries stop this irresponsible management of the environment and that these investors stop and vacate the area after the season.
However, no such action has been taken- “meaning the presidential directive was ignored and we are instead seeing more destruction while Ugandans are paying for these irresponsible acts.
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Passengers using public transport from Masaka to Kampala now have to pay Shs 25,000-Shs30,000, up from Shs15,000 (according to today’s Daily Monitor). Which is absurd. I urge all Ugandans to act now and save our environment or face even worse forms of the wrath of Mother Nature”, adds Mr. Mafundo.
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