Fisheries director warns Nile Basin countries on water quality baseline

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Fisheries director warns Nile Basin countries on water quality baseline
Fisheries director warns Nile Basin countries on water quality baseline

Africa-PressUganda. The Acting Director of Fisheries who is also the commissioner of aquaculture at the Agriculture Ministry, Ms Joyce Ikwaput Nyeko has warned Nile Basin countries on water quality baseline.

“Water quality is very paramount because we use this water at our homes. That means we need to jointly ensure that its quality is good if we are to protect the lives of people who live nearby,” she said during the closing of the 7th Nile Journalists Media Training which ran for 10 days at Water Resources Institute in Entebbe on Friday.

The training was organised by Nile Equatorial Subsidiary Action Program Coordination Unit (NELSAP CU) to build good relations with the media.

Ms Nyeko also noted that we can also use this water for agriculture and irrigation.

“You know we have natural water from the rain but sometimes due to climate change, we get prolonged drought and, therefore, we can get water from the Nile to irrigate and increase crop production. So, cooperation by these countries that share the Nile is very important for us,” she said.

Ms Nyeko added that there are many people whose lives entirely depend on water like fish for food and money

According to the Assistant Commissioner of International and Transboundary Water Affairs in the ministry of water and environment, Mr Sowedi Sewagudde said the potential of the Nile is yet to be exhausted.

“We believe by working together we can optimise the benefits within the basin in general. There’s huge potential for irrigation, hydropower. We can achieve this by coming up with joint programs, for example, developing the Angololo multipurpose dam on the border of Uganda and Kenya which has the potential of about 3000 hectares of irrigable land and about 40 million cubic meters of water to be stored,” he said.

He added: “We are looking at how we can promote navigation on Lake Albert as well as Lake Edward that is shared between Uganda and Kenya and we believe this project could be instrumental.”

There are other projects between Uganda and Tanzania along the Kagera and where they are constructing some power facilities and these are going to be jointly owned between Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.

Dr Michael Kizza, the Deputy Executive Director Nile Basin Initiative said, journalists help in raising the visibility and awareness of issues to do with the Nile Basin and Nile cooperation and that is why they have put in place mechanisms to continuously engage the media in the region.

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