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EAC accused of laxity in salvaging Lake Victoria
2006-05-26 09:48:42
By Adam Ihucha, Arusha
Members of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) have accused the regional bloc’s governments of ’laxity’ in trying to salvage Lake Victoria from an imminent environmental catastrophe.
The legislators took a swipe at the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania during their submission in the current session for dismal performance in rescuing the fresh water lake.
Major General Mugisha Muntu (Uganda) regretted that the trio was only fence-sitting when the regional economies bagged a whopping US$ 300/- from the lake annually.
’’If you have a cow that gives you milk, you should take care of it,’’ General Muntu said, while at the same time explaining that it was in bad test for the East African Community (EAC) to sit back and watch when various agencies globe-trotted scouting for donor funds to rescue Lake Victoria.
On her part, Shilla Kawamalla (Kenya) expressed her fear whether the EAC partner states are really aware of the Lake Victoria problem, which she said was the source of the livelihood of over 30 million people in the region.
’’The lake is declining and going to severely affect 30 million people within the EA region, if remedy measures are not taken, I don’t know whether the chairman of the EA Council of Ministers is aware,’’ said Kawamalla.
Tanzania’s Mahfoudh Alley appealed to the EAC partner governments to expeditiously move in to salvage Lake Victoria, currently threatened by pollution, dropping water levels among a myriad of environmental concerns.
Through a basic question, Dr. George Nangale (Tanzania) sought to know if there existed any agreement binding partner states on the use of water resources from the lake or the feeder rivers.
In response, the chairman of the EAC Council of Ministers, John Koech said the three EAC partner states were fully aware of the problems bedeviling the very survival of the lake and had approached various donors to fund respective remedy measures.
Koech appealed to the EALA members not to be blind to the fact that EAC partner states were going through unprecedented fiscal problems.
’’We are going to fund the rescue operations of the lake, but we don’t have enough resources to address the entire problem…and we should not assume that there are a lot of resources somewhere to take,’’ cautioned Koech.
The minister attributed the drastic decline of water levels in the lake to the protracted drought that dogged the entire region and the Uganda government’s move to drain water from the Lake for hydro- power generation.
Lake Victoria’s water level is reported to be three metres below its normal level.
He said EAC has undertaken an assessment of the falling water levels of Lake Victoria noting its social, economic and environmental impacts, both short and long term.
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