Hello my dear friend and ED of NEMA, Dr. Barirega Akankwasah, salutations. Nkulamusiza, ssebo.
Your intended efforts to implement the environmental law provision that you made public at the Media Centre early in the week seem to have attracted a lot of attention in terms of support but also in rebuke.
https://nilepost.co.ug/2023/02/08/throwing-trash-through-car-window-will-now-land-you-into-an-instant-shs6m-fine-as-nema-introduces-express-penalty-scheme/
Now, I think that it is timely that as we watch in awe and horror the tragic events of the earthquake in Turkey, we too need to seriously reflect on the issues of natural disasters and particularly those that may be exacerbated by the human abuse of nature.
In Turkey, of course we know that the earthquake is a natural phenomena for which you can't place blame on anybody. It just happens and can happen anywhere and we have to deal with its effects.
That being the case, however for Turkey, the focus now is turning to the construction contractors who defied (ignored) the recommended building standards that had been set up in the wake of the devastating earthquake that hit Eastern Turkey in 1935. Now these can be regarded as very many years ago since that disaster and the contractors cum developers must have become so complacent. Obviously, the supervisory bodies of these developers and the construction engineers must have over years gone to sleep preferring to have the construction projects go through the regulatory process quickly for investment/business expediency and the urge to offer affordable accommodation to the citizenry.
As a result, it is being reported that hundreds of building constructors cum developers are being rounded up. They will probably face prosecution with possible penalties of execution on account of their negligence having caused the death of scores of people and destruction of scores of human settlements.
Certainly, in retrospective, the authorities in Turkey must be convinced that they ought to have been stricter and the developers (at those who have humanity in them) must regretting or even remorseful for having put commercial expediency beyond the protection and preservation of life. Well, it is rather too late! Already, according to evolving accounts, over 30,000 people have been reported dead in Turkey side alone in this disaster.
Now, this brings me to our situation here in regard to the continued flaunting sometimes even with blatant impunity of our environmental safeguards in terms of the law provisions that were crafted to not only protect our environment.
A case in point is that way back in the 8th Parliament, to the excitement of all Ugandans across the board, a law banning the use of plastic bags (buveera) was passed. This enactment received tremendous and thunderous support due to the fact that it had been realised that the plastics were the major cause of not only the environmental degradation of our otherwise serene nature but also was the cause of the incessant flooding that wreck most of the city whenever there is a downpour.
That day, the entire country went in a celebratory frenzy happy for having achieved that landmark legislation.
However, to the chagrin and disappointment of many, the law never got to be implemented.
Understandably, the manufacturers and traders in plastic materials including buveera went in overdrive lobbying of the authorities not to allow this legislation to be implemented.
To this day, few Ugandans might even know what kind of plastics that are officially prohibited or allowed, hence the use and indiscriminate throwing of plastics of all forms and of whatever micron continues unabated.
Investment and personal settlement construction continue to take place in the wetlands which has resulted in blockages and diversion of the natural water ways for drainage. All this has been going on and actually continues on account of development.
Just like in Turkey, at each electoral cycle, the minimal supervision by the building and environmental bodies go to sleep on account of not wanting to upset the would be voters.
Of course as the Turkish have come to realise, those votes garnered did come with such a heavy cost to the nation in terms of lives lost and the entire economy.
I am hoping that, we too here can pick a leaf from this disaster in Turkey so that we can start putting our fragile environment ahead of any expediency that might be holding us back from going full throttle in protecting our environment beyond rhetorics.
