CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Crespo Sebunya, Uganda, July 1999
THEME = ECONOMY
Fishing is a lucrative business in Uganda, but it has its hazards,
and not always from Lake Victoria!
March was a bad month for the 70,000 fishermen whose business had a ban slapped on them with immediate effect, after six people died and several others were critically ill in hospital. They had eaten fish caught using poison.
The $137m fishing sector reeled as a result of the ban. Many fishermen saw their lucrative business disappearing. But who was responsible for using the poison? The government went on all out in an effort to track down the culprits. "From today onwards, no fisherman is allow to move from one landing site to another", declared Fred Mukisa, Minister of State for Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries.
Poisoning the fish was a desperate attempt among the poorer fishermen in a bid to stay in business. The liberalisation of trade in virtually every sector made many Ugandans vulnerable. For fishermen, liberalising their trade meant smaller fishermen with rudimentary fishing gear, had to compete with richer businessmen owning trawlers capable of harvesting several tonnes a day.
The poorer fishermen only managed to harvest about 10 kilos a day. Some government officials were aware of this and could have even been behind the fish poisoning, in an effort to try and help the fishermen improve their catch. "With dwindling resources, fishermen have to devise measures to increase their catch. They have often used the wrong type of gear which resulted in extremely poor catches. So, to off-set this, they're now using pesticide", Mukisa said.
Matters would not have reached this pitch if the government had maintained its policy of leaving the fishing sector in the hands of the smaller fishermen. This used to be the situation because the sector employed many people, both directly and indirectly, who otherwise would have been jobless.
The fishing industry has some 70,000 fishermen and an additional 500,000 people indirectly employed in the industry. Their cost- effective measures and simple equipment meant that fish was affordable to a majority of Ugandans. Fish is a major food resource in the country. Annual per capita fish consumption, ranges between 10kgs-18kgs per annum, compared to 1kg per annum for red meat. The comparatively low price of fish could be the main factor contributing to people preferring fish to meat.
The government is looking into ways and means of stopping fishing by using poison. The 1959 Fishing and Crocodile Act doesn't go far enough. Its maximum punishment is Shs 30,000 or a six-months' jail term. "The fine and imprisonment are by themselves not enough to make people realise that the fish must not be poisoned", a government document dealing with ways and means of modernising Ugandan agriculture, published in December 1988 noted. And it is one reason why the government now relies on statutory instruments to punish the culprits.
But, if the government is making major efforts to punish errant fishermen, there is a growing feeling that it should do the same to reckless factories that have also resulted in thousands of fish being poisoned.
The rapid growth of manufacturing concerns (now numbering about 1,500 with an additional 600 in the pipeline), has outstripped government capacity to police the environmental hazard they pose. By law, the National Water and Sewerage Corporation (a government parastatal) is responsible for industrial sewerage treatment, the State of The Environment Report released by the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) noted, "but will the Corporation remain viable if it has to extend its services to cover these smaller industries?".
Environmentalists are aware that many industries in private hands, driven by profit motive and cost-cutting measures, are unlikely to invest in measures that will lessen great amounts of effluent entering the water. Initially, the government's Inspectorate of Factories used to control many of these factories. Now, the Inspectorate is all but dead. Nevertheless, Mukisa says the government is putting its act in order, but he leaves no doubt that the environmental solution is a multi-sectoral problem. "Right now we are preparing appropriate legislation and consulting with the Ministries of Environment, Health, Industry and Internal Affairs so that we come up with a comprehensive law and bring it before the cabinet", he says.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1999 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement