Museveni apologises over army brutality against fishermen

President Museveni on Saturday apologised to Ugandans for deploying the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) on lakes to fight bad fishing practices.

The President said the UPDF were trained to fight wars but after ‘unpatriotic fishermen’ resorted to fishing young fish, he was forced to take another step.
“I decided to deploy army officers because the marine police was defeated by fishermen and had become fish thieves. But it is very sad because I hear complaints that soldiers are caning you but the canes came after resistance from fishermen to stop fishing young fish, which was killing the country’s economy,” Mr Museveni said.

The President was speaking at Isakabusolo Primary School playgrounds in Bulida Sub-county, Bugiri District, at a thanksgiving ceremony for Bukooli Central Member of Parliament Solomon Silwany.
He said the bad fishing practices that were carried out before the intervention of the army were affecting Uganda’s revenue derived from lakes because young fish was being caught and lakes were almost exhausted. “I want to tell you that I heard your complaints and I am soon going to summon elders and MPs from Busoga sub-region to a meeting and we discuss and adopt good fishing practices to be used on our lakes,” Mr Museveni said.

On electricity, he said one of the NRM party’s core mandate is to extend power to all sub-counties in Uganda so that people can have access to power.
“Uganda has 1,500 sub-counties and only 287 have no power; but we are working to ensure that the remaining ones also get power for development of their area,” he said.
He donated 600 iron sheets and 400 bags of cement to Makoma and Isakabusolo primary schools.

Declining fish stocks
The UPDF was deployed following declining fish stocks on Lake Victoria. Nile perch catches declined by 46 per cent between 2011 and 2015, while tilapia catches were lower by 38 per cent during the same period, according to the National Fisheries Resources Research Institute catch assessment survey.

The annual catch for tilapia sharply declined from 29,415 metric tonnes in 2005 to 13,278 metric tonnes in 2015. While Uganda’s fish exports rose from $85 million in 2003 to $141 million in 2006, they declined to $118 million in 2015.
About 13 fish factories closed last year due to scarcity.

The head of operations at the army marine unit, Maj James Niwagaba, explained their tough stance is premised on the criminality of some locals engaged in illegal fishing.