With World Environment Day coming up on the 5th of June, it seems an appropriate time to look at environmental wellness across the world. One of the countries whose wellbeing is at risk is Uganda, where a copper smelting plant in Jinja still haunts the population. The smelting plant is polluting Lake Victoria through a run-off of waste water, while leakage from the Kilembe mines has been draining into the nearby river Nyamwamba and Lake George.
According to Dr Aryamanya Mugisha, the former executive director of the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA), the residue ‘is a hidden danger. The effects will come later in life with more devastating consequences such as cancer.’ He explained, ‘The poison may not kill the fish when it gets into the lake, but the fish get contaminated and the poison comes back to the human beings, who eat the fish.’
Mugisha headed the environmental watchdog NEMA since its inception two decades ago, and confessed it was an oversight. ‘It is one of the areas that were overlooked,’ he said. ‘There is need for a thorough audit because something is going wrong at Masese. The audit should also propose corrective measures.’ Professor Eldad Tukahirwa, former head of Makerere University Institute of Environment and Natural Resources and the World Conservation Union at Nairobi, notes that the residues contain heavy metals such as cobalt.
For decades, Tukahirwa commented, a lot of toxic waste has accumulated and is now leaking into the surrounding ecological systems such as neighbouring Queen Elizabeth National Park and Lake George. Part of the park in Kasese Municipality was left bare in the late 1980s due to waste water washed from the copper waste. Tukahirwa explained, ‘We discovered that the piles of waste had a lot of cobalt.’
Ernest Nabihamba, the Jinja Municipal natural resources officer, added that the growing bare ground at Masese has attracted more wellness concern. ‘The stones left behind have minerals and when they get into contact with water sulfuric acid is formed and this burns the vegetation,’ he said, adding that he compiled a report on the subject and sent it to NEMA, but no action has ever been taken to restore the environment. Waiswa Ayazika, the director of environmental monitoring at NEMA, responded, ‘I have not seen that report on Masese smelting plant.’
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