
Salt works at Lake Katwe. The main products extracted by miners are high-quality salt crystals, blocks of rock salt, and salty mud used as salt licks for cattle
When I arrived at Lake Katwe Salt Works shores, the air had a rotten egg odour. The offensive smell is the hydrogen sulphide gas (also known as H2S) that occurs naturally in the lake.
The numerous artisanal salt miners and traders, who were going about their daily routines under the mid-morning sun, did not seem bothered by the stench. Some are busy cleaning their ponds or salt pans, while others engage in price negotiations with salt traders. Meanwhile, other miners can be seen on wooden rafts, transporting blocks of rock salt freshly extracted from Lake Katwe.
The ponds are about 10 by 12 feet or so wide and three to five feet deep, demarcating sections of the shores of Uganda’s largest artisanal salt lake owned by private individuals or families. It is an ancient crater lake located north of Mweya Peninsular in the southwestern part of Queen Elizabeth National Park. Lake Katwe is one of about 52 explosion crater lakes found in the Katwe-Kabatooro Town Council, Kasese District.
The three main products extracted by miners from Lake Katwe are high-quality salt crystals that can be sold as table salt, blocks of rock salt, and salty mud used as salt licks for cattle. Sanyu Kasoro, a salt winner, tourist guide and owner of seven salt pans, tells the Monitor thus: “We never wish for rain because when it rains, it means that we can’t win or mine. Salt can’t be formed in the salt pans in the rainy season. Salt is formed during the sunny season in the salt pans.”
Salt winning is dependent on the hot sun because that is when salt crystals form on top of the salt pan in the form of a carpet. The following day the owner of the pond will push the salt downstream. The salt is then harvested from the salt pan after seven days.
“The first harvest,” Kasoro says,“ is salt for cows to lick, which is bought by cattle keepers from neighbouring communities. The second layer is human edible salt used for cooking food.”
Mr Zadock Sebagala, the vice chairman of the Lake Katwe Mahonde Salt Extractors and Traders Cooperative Association, reveals that close to 80 salt miners are on their register. Sebagala, who owns a home in Katwe-Kabatooro Town Council, adds that the sale and consumption of alcohol are not permitted at the site because intoxicated miners could die in the lake.
Sebagala discloses that the men “only work for three days a week and rest on the other days to avoid salt affecting their bodies, especially the skin.” While he insists that the men wear condoms to protect their private parts, Kasoro dismisses this out of hand.
“Men do not put on condoms as rumoured,” she disputes,“ because the water is cold meaning their private parts will shrink, rendering the condoms useless. Instead, they smear themselves with petroleum jelly on the whole body so water can be slippery on the body.”
Women are not allowed to mine salt in the lake, per Kasoro,“ because if the salt gets into the uterus, a woman will not give birth.” Worth the salt According to Mr Nicholas Kagongo, the director of the Katwe Eco Tourism Information Centre under the Katwe Town Council Community Tourism Office, rock salt is a unique type of salt that takes three to five years to form.
“It is renewable and sustainable salt formed through a natural process and chemical reactions. About 10 per cent of this salt is consumed in homes while almost 90 per cent is utilised by the textile industry to fix colours in fabrics, soap factories, chemical and pharmaceutical industries,” he reveals. “The rock salt tested in laboratories was found to contain more than 84 mineral ingredients, some needed for human body function [...] The rock salt can treat intestinal cancer, cough and other throat-related diseases when licked or cooked. The special brown mud colour can restore bleached skin to its natural state. Buffaloes and warthogs bathe in this mud to kill ticks and heal wounds. This mud strengthens the hoofs of the buffaloes,” Kagongo adds.
“Pan natural salt, famed for being organic thanks to natural ingredients like iodine, is the runaway favourite of many. You get direct zinc from the salt. Zinc boosts health in blood, mind and bones,” Kagongo tells Saturday Monitor. “Through artisanal production of pan salt, we don’t need a salt factory. All we need is to add value to the salt in terms of packaging,” Kagongo suggests. Salt mining occurs during two peak seasons each year: the first from January to mid-March and the second from July to mid-August. Thousands of salt miners sell their harvest to the Lake Katwe Mahonde Salt Extractors and Traders Cooperative Association. Sebagala has been involved in salt mining at Katwe since 1979.“Rock salt,” he says, “is mainly bought by local cat- tle-keeping communities and traders from Rwanda, DR Congo, and South Sudan.”
Cattle farmers feed their cows rock salt to treat worms.“A cow that does not have worms,” Sebagala opines, “will produce a lot of milk.” The salt is sold in kilogrammes, with 100 kilogrammes of rock salt going for Shs148,000. One hundred kilogrammes of salt for human consumption costs anywhere between Shs150,000 and Shs200,000. In fact, Katwe-Kabatooro Town Council used to annually collect taxes worth Shs1 billion. Challenges The vagaries of weather have thrown a spanner in the works.
“One of our biggest problems is the heavy rains that fill up the lake, which can go as deep as six feet,” Sebagala laments.
“It means that shorter men can’t go into the lake to mine salt. It is only taller men who can do the mining because the water levels are high. The heavy rains lower our incomes.” When it rains, the blocks of rock salt are covered with polythene sheets. Short of that, the salt dissolves.
The Health Centre III in Katwe is also accustomed to having people check in with wounds suffered during mining processes. “Some companies have introduced protective gear, including a suit and gumboots. But then when you go into deeper parts of the lake, above three feet, water gets into the gear as you bend to extract the rock salt, making the suit heavier,” Sebagala discloses.
He adds that they use the pith tree, locally known as ekihandakati (aeschynomene elaphroxylon or am- batch), for making a temporary raft (ekisengo) to carry the rock salt from the lake to the landing site. This tree species is only available in the Queen Elizabeth National Park under the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA).
“These rafts cannot last for more than six months. The Uganda Wildlife Authority does not permit us to cut these trees in the park. We usually get arrested for harvesting these trees in the park. So, we are requesting the Uganda Wildlife Authority to permit us to harvest these trees through an agreement or memorandum of understanding between us and the government,” Sebagala adds.
Kagongo observes that climate change is a very big concern because they are now not able to predict conducive weather conditions.
“To address this concern I have come up with a concept paper whereby we are going to construct cemented and wooden salt pans some metres off the shores of the salt lake. These pans will produce salt every day and not wait for seven days."