Minister wants UPDF deployed to fight illegal fishing

By John Masaba and John Semakula

After failing to eliminate illegal fishing with the use of civilians and Marine Police, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has appealed to President Yoweri Museveni to deploy soldiers to lead the fight.

The Minister of State for Fisheries, Zerubabel Nyiira told a meeting of stakeholder in the fishing industry on Friday that corruption among civilians in the industry has reached alarming levels and is threatening the lucrative venture that he wants the President to give him soldiers.

Nyiira explained that he is pushing for the army to take over fisheries the way it was handed over the management of the National Agriculture Advisory Services (NAADS).

President Museveni recently fired civilian managers of the NAADS programme before deploying the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) soldiers.

The move followed a failure by civilian managers who abused billions of shillings that had been injected into the programme.

The minister made the remarks during a workshop held at National Research Organisation office in Kajjansi on Friday.

Themed: Strengthening client oriented research for enhanced fish production and wealth creation, the workshop organised by the National Fisheries Resources Institute (NaFIRRI), a sub division of the National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO) aimed at sharing findings about the industry in the last one year.

Nyiira noted that if soldiers don't intervene now, corruption could wipe out the country's earning from the industry at the time the sector is facing dwindling stocks and declining forex earnings.

He said: "The Government has invested a lot of money in the civilian law enforcement team, but there are no results. Rather than have all this personnel producing no results, it is better to bring in the army in the way NAADS was done."

He explained that whereas the department employees a squad of 140 civilians, it has failed to stop illegal fishing which he said is depleting the lake.

Nyiira further explained that after deploying soldiers to fight the vice, the money that has been going to civilians should be diverted to build capacity to increase fish stocks.

During the same meeting, NARO Director General, Anthony Taabu-Munyaho, revealed that the government had identified fish as one of the 10 priority commodities to support in the National Development Plan. The fish industry is one of Uganda's top foreign exchange earners.

Munyaho added that as such the sector had set its self a target of promoting commercial fish species from the current 220,000 metric tons to 300,000 tons in five years.

He said that government has also a target of increasing commercial aquaculture to increase production from the 90,000 to 305,000 tonnes.

During a presentation, Victor Namulawa, the NARO research officer presented compelling finding of a research carried out around lake Edward that shows that the country has reduced the overreliance on the lake by introducing communities, living around to other activities.