Mbarara leaders rally locals to fight water weed in river

Leaders in Mbarara Municipality have rallied residents to protect River Rwizi from contamination and degradation.
The river has been invaded by water hyacinth and is degraded by human activities such as sand mining, washing, cultivation and industrial waste.

Cell and division leaders have since Thursday last week mobilised about 500 residents to remove the water hyacinth.

Mr Moses Karanzi Kajubi, the Nyamitanga Division chairperson, said they decided to reach out to residents after government took long to intervene.

“We are doing this because the money central government had budgeted for the work two years ago has not yet come. If we leave the river to government, we shall lose it; so we said let’s start and government will find us somewhere’,’’ Mr Kajubi said.

“We are also fighting the tendency of leaving everything to Nema [National Environment Management Authority] and the ministries. We need the city and it cannot be when we do not have water,’’ he added.

Mr Kajubi said they learnt the practice from Kisumu in Kenya when they visited the area under Lake Victoria Region Local Authorities Cooperation arrangement last year.

“Division chairpersons in Mbarara municipality visited Kisumu and we found that they had a similar problem. The remedy was to involve the locals; they pulled out the weed, put it at the lake shores and cut it. We said we can also sensitise our people to solve the problem and today, it has started working,’’ he said.

Mr Francis Basiime, the chairperson of Kiswahili cell in Kakoba Division, said the river was invaded by hyacinth around 2011.

“It has spread to a big area and it will be difficult to manage if we don’t act now. By the end of the year, we shall have done a big job,’’ he said.

Mr Emmy Turyabagyenyi Kateera, the deputy Resident District Commissioner, urged the rest of the public, including the business community, to join the campaign.

Prisons, police, students, civil society and residents and their leaders from Kakoba, Nyakayojo, Kakiika, Biharwe, Kamukuzi and Nyamitanga divisions participated in cutting the hyacinth.
Mr Richard Musota, the principal water officer in the Ministry of Water and Environment, said they have been engaging local communities to protect water sources.

“Since 2011, we have had a framework called ‘catchment based water resources management’ that emphasises engaging stakeholders so that they are able to take charge of management of water resources,” Mr Musota said.

“We are glad to see that stakeholders, the LCs have now taken initiative to mobilise residents to tackle the water weed,’’ he added.

Mr Musota said the ministry had not got the resources to tackle the problem and lauded the leadership for taking on the initiative.

“The ministry has been doing many things on River Rwizi such as demarcation of buffer zone and other activities but we are limited by financial resources. What people are doing is good and as the ministry, we shall facilitate them with tools,” he said.