The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries, Puis Wakabi has refuted allegations of fish poisoning on Lake Victoria and Lake Kyoga.
His statements followed media reports about dead fish floating on water and being swept ashore on parts of these lakes and River Nile.
Kasajja said a team constituting of senior fisheries, inspectors, laboratory officers was dispatched by the Directorate of Fisheries Resources from National Fisheries Resources Research Institute on a fact finding mission and collected samples from various landing sites in Wakiso district.
The sites included: Kasenyi and surrounding areas, Gguda, Bugonga, Wagagi Flower Farm,Lido beach and Kigungu Landing site.
Kasajja said from the interactions with the fishermen at the landing sites, many said this is a usual phenomenon called Kaliro (hypoxia) that leads to fish death (kutumbuka).
This time however, the fishermen said that the death rate was much higher than before as old and young nile perch fish were affected.
He said samples including the dead fish and water samples were picked from the above mentioned landing sites and taken for further analysis.
“As we await the comprehensive laboratory findings report due on Monday January 11th, 2020, preliminary investigations have ruled out fish poisoning. As only the Nile Perch specie has been affected by this phenomenon,”he said.
“Due to the stratification of the lake, it is suspected that the recent storms on the lakes caused mixing of the different waters thereby reducing the oxygen levels in the lake,” Wakabi said.
However, Kasajja said tests are still being conducted and the general public will be updated on the findings from the tests.
He called upon the public to disregard the audio circulating on social media calling upon people to stop eating fish.
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