By Ezaruku Draku Franklin

Environmentalist are back again to the “crying board” after government allocated a paltry Shs65.84 billion to the key institutions charged with the responsibilities of protecting the environment and tame climate change that is threatening livelihoods of millions of Ugandans.  

While reading the budget last week, the minister of finance, planning and economic development, Matia Kasaija told the nation that climate change is a significant risk for agriculture production, and food security.

“In order to mitigate environmental degradation, we have set a target to increase the national forest cover from the current 12.4 percent to 15 percent. Central Forest Reserves will be protected from encroachment by re-surveying and marking of 6200 square kilometers of boundary. Madam Speaker, 850 square kilometers of wetlands and forests will also be restored by having them demarcated and gazetting, and evicting all encroachers. Madam Speaker, I have allocated Shs628 billion in the next Financial Year 2022/23 for actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change,” Kasaija said.

While the climate change and environment was allocated Shs628 billion, bulk of the money has been given to ministry of water and environment and that of lands, housing and urban development.

This leaves the National Environment Management Authority, National Forestry Authority and Uganda National Meteorological Authority with peanuts to protect the environment. The three institutions are mandated protect Uganda’s forest cover, protect the wetlands and give accurate weather and climate situations across the country and require adequate funding to achieve the required results.

In the 2022/23 financial year, NEMA has been allocated Shs18.94 billion, NFA has Shs29.24 billion and UNMA was given Shs17.66 billion.

The ministries of water and environment and that of lands, housing and urban development were allocated Shs259.93 billion and Shs123.66billion respectively, while ministry of local government got Shs94 billion under climate change and environment.

Several other government ministries, agencies and departments have also been given a share of the environment budget, including office of Prime Minister, KCCA and others.

During the same budget reading, President Museveni ordered that all encroachers must leave the wetlands across the country with immediate effect. He said that there should be no negotiations with encroachers who have deliberately invaded the wetlands and settled there.

The president however said there are people who were forced into the wetlands by the colonial government and that those groups will be compensated, while those that have used force to encroach on the wetlands will be kicked out.

“We don’t have to negotiate because they knew it was not right but they insisted, even here in Kampala I see these people entering a bit in Lubigi swamp and these other swamps,” he added.

The big challenge

Tony Achidria, the senior public relations officer at NEMA on the budget allocations said while NEMA has been added Shs5 billion extra money, he said that is still not enough to manage the environment.

“That is an addition of Shs5 billion to what NEMA was allocated last financial year. It is still below what we require, but the allocation is a good step forward in the right direction knowing the budgetary constraints that the economy has been facing because of a number of challenges including Covid-19,” he said.

Dr Barirega Akankwasa, the Executive Director of NEMA in an earlier interview said while there are a lot of expectations on the performance of the authority, the same has been deprived of resources.

Dr Akankwasa said currently, the country is grappling with the issues of degradation of the environment and the ecosystem including wetlands and forests. He said wetlands have been decimated from 15 percent to 8.8 percent.

“Our plan is to increase the wetlands from 8.9 percent to 12 percent and beyond. Forests have declined from 45 percent in 1900 to 12 percent. Our plan is to move the forest cover from 12 percent to at least 18 percent by 2030,” he said.

Dr Akankwasa said the authority has limited capacity to enforce the laws because of lack of human resources to enforce these laws. He said this has been worsened by the meagre funding allocated to the authority even when they have cried to the ministry of finance for more allocations.

“We lack financial resources and equipment to enforce these laws. We need technical capability in terms of air quality equipment, in terms of noise standards measuring equipment, in terms of effluent discharge water quality management laboratories so that we can be able to enforce the standards,” he added.

“We require about Shs35.5 billion to evict those who are wrongfully in the wetlands, but the current budget of NEMA is now Shs13 billion. Shs10billion of this goes into salaries and statutory obligations like NSSF, gratuity and others and so practically you are looking at only Shs3billion to run the affairs of environment to cover the whole country which is not possible,” he added.

Mr David Elweru, the acting Executive Director of Uganda National Meteorological Authority said the allocation to them is a just a drop in the ocean. He said the authority had a budget cut of up to Shs8 billion, which they required for retooling.

He said the two radar stations at Entebbe and Rwampara need more funding to maintain with several other weather stations across the country.

“We have had several engagements with the natural resources committee in parliament. We have unfunded priorities totaling to Shs39 billion and we hoped that we would be able to get some money, but now these cuts will greatly affect us,” he said.

“When you look at the organization, the wage bill alone is about Shs7 billion an since these are contractual jobs, at the end of the year, the employees are entitled to gratuity which is about Shs3 billion, which means Shs10 billion is gone for wages and gratuity. We also have to pay other statutory obligations that leaves us with almost nothing for capital development. What activities can you implement with Shs7 billion? That money is just peanuts” he added.