Various players in the oil and gas sector have pledged to mitigate environmental challenges in the development for production of Uganda's petroleum resources.
They made the vow during a symposium convened by the Civil Society Coalition on Oil and Gas (CSCO), in collaboration with the Parliamentary Forum on Oil and Gas (PFOG) and Uganda Parliamentary Network on Illicit Financial Flows and Tax Justice (UPNIFFT) Munyonyo.
The players said a sizeable percentage of collected revenues from oil should be used to spur economic development and improve service delivery.
The State Minister for Mineral Development, Peter Lokeris, highlighted the importance of proper data management if the country is to fast track revenues from the sector.
"We can not operate a sector like this one if we have no data that we should base on to track all the activities in the commercial oil production," Lokeris said.
The director of environment, health, safety and security at the Petroleum Authority Uganda, Dr Joseph Kobusheshe noted that the government has strengthened efforts to ensure smooth running of oil projects.
"As the director of environment at PAU, this is my role to strengthen ties with the government to make sure we make a boost in our oil and gas sector," Kobusheshe said.
The director of monitoring and compliance at the National Environment Management Authority, (NEMA) Waiswa Yezika said the "different stakeholders should be the advocates of this cause so as to help save the environment from being degraded."