{"id":19342,"date":"2021-10-12T17:03:15","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T17:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=19342"},"modified":"2021-10-12T16:13:28","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T16:13:28","slug":"lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant","title":{"rendered":"Lwengo\u2019s Shs1b irrigation project remains dormant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Uganda<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>The Shs1 billion irrigation scheme government set up in Lwengo District remains dormant, six years after it was established, Daily Monitor has learnt.<\/p>\n

The solar-powered irrigation system, which draws water from Kyoja Swamp on the Masaka-Ndagwe Road, has recently vandalised.<\/p>\n

The scheme was designed to benefit 45 farming households under Kyassonko Small Scale Irrigation Farmers Association (KSSIA) in Kyassonko Village, Kisekka Sub-county in November 2016.<\/p>\n

The farmers grow crops such as cabbage, hot pepper, and watermelon.<\/p>\n

Mr Anthony Ssebiyiki, a member of KSSIA, said the Shs410m equipment was stolen.<\/p>\n

The vandalised equipment include batteries, wires and the main switch.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe vandals first dug a hole in the store where the equipment is kept and gained access. The theft of the solar panel equipment forced us to raise concern with the resident district commissioner,\u201d he said during an interview at the weekend<\/p>\n

The system was set up to buffer the effects of drought during the dry spell.<\/p>\n

Mr Ssebiyiki said they have not benefited from the project after government failed to operationalise it. He added that farmers still use jerrycans to irrigate their crops.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe contractor came and put water tanks without installing drip irrigation pipes connecting to our gardens. We tried to look for help and everyone at the district could say that they were not responsible for the project,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Kyassonko Village chairperson, Mr Jerome Ssemuli, said many farmers have since quit the association.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, we tried to collect money amongst ourselves to operationalise the project but failed . The group had 42 members, but majority have lost morale and only 11 are remaining in the association ,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Gerald Kikomeko, the chairperson of KSSIA, said the thieves had technical knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo amateur could break into that fence the way they did. The people who stole the equipment knew very well how that system operates,\u201d Mr Kikomeko said .<\/p>\n

Mr Godfrey Lugalambi, the Lwengo District water engineer, said he was not involved in the initial stages of the project and knows little about it .<\/p>\n

\u201cThe engineer who did the project came from Mbarara and he did not inform me about its progress, not even paying a courtesy visit to my office,\u201d Mr Lugalambi said .<\/p>\n

Mr George Matovu Saitoti, the former speaker of Lwengo District, in an earlier interview said before government handed over the project to the beneficiaries, the Ministry of Agriculture trained three residents to carry out simple repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, the water should not be overflowing because we had told them [farmers] to control it manually right at the pump. In regard to the water not getting into the drip irrigation pipe, I think it is due to the impurities in the water since it is pumped directly from the swamp. They will need water filters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Herman Ssentongo, the resident district commissioner, tasked the district police commander and the chief administrative officer to investigate the matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment injected a lot of money into that project and it\u2019s absurd that leaders did not play their role to monitor it. I am still new here but I promise we are going to bring to book whoever messed up that project ,\u201dMr Ssentongo said.<\/p>\n

Kalungu District<\/b><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the four solar-powered irrigation systems in Kalungu District, funded by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the European Union (EU), are progressing well.<\/p>\n

The systems in three sub-counties of Lwabenge, Bukulula, Kyamulibwa are part of the climate change adaptation measures.<\/p>\n

Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture revealed they would establish more small-scale irrigation schemes in all parishes across the country to improve livelihoods through commercial farming .<\/p>\n

The project, that would be implemented in a phased manner, aims at increasing storage volumes of water for irrigation, livestock and aquaculture in the country\u2019s 10,594 parishes.<\/p>\n

Uganda has irrigation potential of 3.03 million hectares. Of that, the current irrigation coverage is 0.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

The total land under irrigation is around 15,000 hectares.<\/p>\n

[email protected]<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. The Shs1 billion irrigation scheme government set up in Lwengo District remains dormant, six years after it was established, Daily Monitor has learnt. The solar-powered irrigation system, which draws water from Kyoja Swamp on the Masaka-Ndagwe Road, has recently vandalised. The scheme was designed to benefit 45 farming households under Kyassonko Small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":19341,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,8],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-19342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","category-homepage-english","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nLwengo\u2019s Shs1b irrigation project remains dormant - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Shs1 billion irrigation scheme government set up in Lwengo District remains dormant, six years after it was establis ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lwengo\u2019s Shs1b irrigation project remains dormant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Shs1 billion irrigation scheme government set up in Lwengo District remains dormant, six years after it was establis ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-12T17:03:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/10\/img-6165b41308666.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Lwengo\u2019s Shs1b irrigation project remains dormant\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-12T17:03:15+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\"},\"wordCount\":660,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2021\/10\/img-6165b41308666.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\",\"homepage-english\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/lwengos-shs1b-irrigation-project-remains-dormant\",\"name\":\"Lwengo\u2019s Shs1b irrigation project remains dormant - 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