Project X youth innovators is a team of six university graduates who devised means of earning income by introducing unique water transport devices within the country. This time around, they designed a bicycle with two light pipes at the sides which enable it to keep afloat along the lake.
Agnes Atwooki, the NSWC Jinja area Principal Public Relations Officer told URN that Jinja, one of the country’s oldest towns, had heavy capacity underground sewerage lines. However, over time, road contractors have left the lines leaking without making any attempts to refurbish them after completing their road works.
The on-going exercise that commenced on Thursday at Nsonga landing site in Nakisunga Sub County intends to maintain the 200 meters from the water bodies as a buffer zone, where no human activity is allowed.
The company was contracted to construct the 2.9 kilometres of Eng Zhikusooka Road and Main Street extension in Jinja district, under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development- USMID project.
The residents note that their counterparts across the islands of Serinya B, Bumba, Kazi and Sagitu who purchase food from different landing sites have continued with their daily movements to the neighbouring countries of Kenya and Tanzania yet there are security forces mandated to enforce the presidential directives.
Led by their Chairperson, Majid Magumba, the Fishermen say they don’t have money to service the loans they acquired to inject in the enterprise since their main source of income has been crashed.
State Minister for Fisheries Hellen Adoa Says that many of the encroachers have failed to heed to calls to vacate the shoreline, threatening the natural resources and their habitats. According to Adoa, all the lakes are now covered with floating islands that descended from the weakening shorelines as a result of human activity.
George Musinguzi, the UPDF Spokesperson in Busoga sub region, says they have teamed up with experts from the National Environment Management Authority and National Fisheries Resources Research institute-NAFIRRI to ensure that their operations are nondestructive to aquatic life.
According to ESKOM Uganda Limited, the company with a concession to operate and maintain Nalubaale and Kiira Hydro Power stations, the floating Island which originated from Lake Victoria Basin as a result of the current rising water levels created extensive debris and waste material that blocked the water intake screens, through which water for power generation is transported.
The island was part of Lake Victoria’s shore which shrunk into the lake but floated towards River Nile and blocked the power generation plants after heavy winds on Monday night.
By this morning, a number of gardens and pig houses were floating on parts of the lake that are adjacent to Masese landing site, Rippon falls and Rock. The same villages are also threatened by the rising water levels which are seemingly threatening to guzzle the Lake Victoria shoreline.
Mukiibi Sserunjogi, a 30 passenger boat operator from Katosi landing site to Ddamba island in Koome sub county Mukono district, says many people are stranded on the islands and lack money to return to their homes.
The report shows that there were several reports where the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings, including due to torture in 2019.
Nabende also a fisherman did not return home on Monday morning as it was expected from a night fishing shift creating suspicion among his family members to start his search before filling a missing case on Tuesday at the district police station
Maj. Joseph Ssebukera, the Commandant of the UPDF Fisheries Protection Unit on Eastern Lake Victoria, says the impounded nets carry electric current, which peels off fish skin causing it to die and float on the lake.
Willy Lugoloobi, the Kalangala District LC V Chairperson concurs with Ssempijja, saying there is need to regulate the operations of the unit instead of halting its operations.
Speaking at the launch of the 2019 fish festival in Jinja district on Friday, Gerstl said using the recommended fishing gears will protect the available fish species from depletion as only recommended sizes shall surface in the market.
