An environmental activist has sued Kabarole and Kyenjojo district local governments for failing to enforce the environmental laws.
Through his lawyers—Asaba and Company Advocates, Clovis Kabaseke, a lecturer at Mountains of the Moon University, says that the two local governments have abdicated their responsibility of holding the natural resources in trust for the people.
According to Kabaseke, the local governments are looking on or could be conniving with the culprits as the environment is being degraded, despite the laws being in place. He says that the two local governments have failed to enforce the National Environment (wetlands, river banks and lakeshore) management regulation 2000, which calls for protection of wetlands, rivers and lakeshores.
According to the regulation, any person who wants to carry out any activity around the river bank should first seek permission from the executive director NEMA and whoever breaks the law is imprisoned for not less than three months or to a fine not exceeding three million shillings or both.
In his law suit dated February 1st 2012, Kabaseke cites the natural resources that have been degraded like encroachment on the banks of River Mpanga, where people have constructed permanent and temporally structures and Kazingo in Kichwamba Sub County, where sand mining has affected the flow of the same river.
In Matiri, Kyenjojo district, several hectares of forest cover have been cut down and the timber sold illegally, with the knowledge of the district administration.
In an interview, Kabaseke also says that the two local government councils have passed several by laws on the environment but they have never been enforced. He notes that he decided to take the matter to court because he has on several occasions petitioned the local governments but in vain.
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When contacted, both Juma Nyende, the Chief Administrative Officer Kabarole and Enid Kajumba, the deputy CAO Kyenjojo said that they have not yet received the law suit.
Professor John Ntambirweki, an environmental lawyer at Uganda Pentecostal University in Fort Portal, says that the legal suit against the two local governments is timely and should be an eye opener to other local governments, who are not enforcing the environment laws.
Ntambirweki says that it is surprising the local governments and even the central government spends lots of money drafting the laws and they are never enforced.
Several NGOs have in the past accused both local governments for not enforcing the environment laws.
