Residents take wetland fight to Parliament
Trucks offload soil at Rosebud flower farm in Entebbe on Monday. Residents are concerned that the firm is expanding on a wetland, a claim Rosebud’s administration manager, Mr Dimple Mehta, dismissed the claims, saying their activities have Nema approval. PHOTO BY STEPHEN WANDERA.
What you need to know:
While Rosebud management insists that their expansion project was approved by Nema, residents of Lutembe in Entebbe have expressed worry that the flower farm is encroaching on a wetland, which will affect their lives.
Kampala
Police were by last evening still heavily deployed across Lutembe as residents opposed to a flower farm’s activities on a vast wetland vowed to protest against what they called illegal re-claiming of the wetland.
Rosebud, the flower farm owned by city tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia, is on the spot over worsening the already worrying state of the environment in the country after it embarked on filling of Lutembe Wetland bay in Wakiso District for expansion of its flower project.
The farm, however, insists their activities are lawful because they have a certificate of approval from the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) for the proposed expansion.
The Environmental Impact Assessment of Rosebud flower farm was issued on January 20, 2004. However, the reclamation of the wetland has since sparked ire among residents, who blocked the road leading to the flower farm in Kawuku on Entebbe Road.
The attention shifted to Parliament after Wakiso District leadership petitioned the August House. “We decided to petition Parliament through our area MP Joseph Balikuddembe to compel the line government departments to carry out their work with due diligence,” Wakiso District Chairperson Matia Lwanga Bwanika said.
The residents allege that the expansion of the four-kilometre flower farm was a sign of impunity on the side of the developer despite the negative consequences.
Mr Bwanika said the move is to save Lake Victoria since Parliament has failed to monitor Rosedud’s activities. “I have asked the Minister of Water, Mr Ephraim Kamuntu and the Inspector General of Police to investigate the matter and come up with recommendations that would benefit both the residents and the developer but most importantly the environment,” Mr Bwanika said.
In a letter to the Inspector General of Police, Gen Kale Kayihura, the district leader alleges that there is no authority to assist him in rectifying the anomaly. “I have technical documents from various authorities indicating that the ongoing dumping of murram at Kikusa-Namulanda is illegal and against the environmental laws of Uganda,” reads the letter in part.
The letter points out that security agencies, instead of helping to halt the activities, were escorting trucks to the wetland. When the Daily Monitor visited the site in contention, murram had been ferried and graded from the back of a temporary structure housing Rosebud flowers.
There were also waiting graders at work whenever murram was ferried in. The executive director of Nema, Dr Tom Okurut, on May 8 asked the managing director of Rosebud to undertake periodic environmental audits so that emerging environmental issues were mitigated or enhanced on time.
“We wish to inform you of the fragility of the ecosystem around the project site. You are required to ensure that the following measures are put in place as you proceed with your development,” reads the letter.
According to Mr Okurut’s letter, Rosebud management was asked to work with surveyors to ensure that the entire flower farm is restricted to the area and maintain growing of flowers in an artificial media with no contact with the ground.
“Erect a soil retention embankment around the entire project site on areas adjacent to existing Lutembe wetland to prevent silting and entire ecosystem and also act as the boundary of the permitted area,” reads the Nema letter.
By yesterday midmorning, anti-riot officers had deployed on the road leading to the farm and surrounding areas to protect trucks ferrying murram.
Entebbe DPC Edgar Nyabongo said in an interview that the deployment was aimed at preventing violence.
Mr Paul Mafabi, the director of Wetland Affairs at the ministry of Water, said the ongoing wetland degradation was an issue of a rich and influential involvement. “The big issue is that Sudhir has a land title in the wetland of more than 500 acres. I am not sure why police are protecting impunity,” Mr Mafabi said in a text message from Kigali, Rwanda.
Mr Mafabi in an earlier interview said the state of wetlands was relatively worrying, given that Uganda had lost 30 per cent of the wetlands over the last 15 years through urbanisation, settlement and agriculture.
What is at stake
• Wetlands help to store and regulate water flow because they act as sponges, socking up water during heavy rains.
• They filter and clean water once it is held long enough, and in so doing ensure that fisheries and other aquatic life can survive with clean water.
• In the process of regulating water, wetlands promote evapotranspiration, which contributes to rainfall formation.
