By Spy Uganda
Fort Portal: The newly appointed Assistant Resident City Commissioner (D/RCC) Fort Portal City, Nesta Larry has vowed to send wetland encroachers into jail for competing with frogs for habitancy. “You’re building a permanent house in a wetland where frogs live, where do you want them to go then?” Posed a question.
Nesta says many illegal structures continue to sprout on wetlands in the City surbabs, especially in Mugunu, Kitembe and Kahungabunyonyi in the Central & Northern divisions if the only tourism City in the country.
”We’ve intensified operations against environmental degradation in Fort Portal, in support of NEMA efforts that they intensified recently, I don’t want to take my people by surprise, I would rather alert my people ealy enough. Last week I inspected the above mentioned areas, where I found a lot of encroachment on the wetlands. I’ve warned those constructing in the wetlands and ordered them to remove the murram on the river Mpanga catchment,” he added.
Nesta has also vowed to arrest the so called untouchables who have built huge structures on Kiboga Road in Fort Portal. He argued that he was fulfilling the directive of President YK Museveni against encroachment on wetlands.
The president has been underscoring the benefits of wetlands to Uganda, noting that destroying them could turn the country into a dry land.
“Wetlands are a source of 40% of our rain and if you destroy them, the whole of Uganda will be like Karamoja or worse. Where will the water come from if you have dried the wetlands? The water is from these wetlands. Swamps are also natural filters of water that go into lakes. The swamp grasses are God-made filters but now we are busy destroying them. We can’t allow this. You destroy the nearest wetland, you deny yourself water for irrigation. What sort of country is this? How can we accept this,” Museveni recently wondered.
