Ships dock at a box next to the Kigungu landing on weekends. PHOTOS | EVE MUGANGA
A dispute has erupted between fishermen and landowners over the berthing at Kigungu Landing in Entebbe Township, Wakiso District.
This occurred after fishermen moored their boats ashore near Kigungu’s mooring site, which was submerged due to the emerging waters of Lake Victoria.
“The biggest challenge we face here in Kigungu is rising water levels. The landowners don’t need us docking on their land, but lately we don’t have a position to dock because everything is flooded. So where do they need us to go? Fred Sserwadda wondered a fisherman on Saturday.
Sserwadda added that landowners are asking fishermen to pay 20,000 shillings for the boats to dock at the new site.
“They [the owners] claim to have title deeds, but the domain where we dock is less than two hundred meters away, which is a buffer zone,” he said.
“We need the government and local leaders to interfere so that we can continue our operations without interference, because we saved the emerging water levels,” he added.
Mr. Robert Bakakki, also a fisherman at the same landing site, said that while they are meant to operate within two hundred meters of the lakeshores, some other people have received land titles that extend to the shores of the lake.
“We disagree with homeowners who chase our boats off the coast. It is the landowners who illegally occupy the land in the buffer zones,” he said.
John Ndugga, Secretary of Production, Marketing and Social Reintegration of Entebbe’s B Division, said he was aware of the impasse between homeowners and fishermen.
“We call on landowners to perceive that this [rising water level] is a long-term situation, to allow fishing boats to dock, while the government mobilizes to solve the problem,” he said.
Richard Ssekyondo, president of Entebbe’s B Division, said it was up to the developers to hold title to the lakeshores and implored the National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA) to look into the matter.
Article 36 of the National Environmental Law provides for the protection of wetlands and empowers districts to ensure that their barriers are clearly demarcated, so that even when water levels drop, citizens do not encroach on them.