Although concerns about the rising water level of Lake Victoria peaked last month, the Uganda Media Centre reported that the lake started to rise last year in October due to the heavy rains that covered the entire country, flooding several districts and destroying property.
As of May 8, 2020, the lake had risen to 13.42 meters, which is a record high, according to the Ministry of Water and Environment. This rise means that areas in the proximity of the lake are being flooded and reclaimed as part of the lake.
Residences on the shores of Lake Victoria are dealing with this flooding as some of them become occasionally water-logged, and life on beaches such as Gaba, KK, and Ddungu has become hard.
This is why the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) has directed Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to close these three beaches and two markets due to their current untenable use.
The beaches, together with Mulungu and Gaba landing sites were ordered to close and have vendors working there relocated to safer places, in a letter by NEMA Executive Director Dr Tom Okurut to KCCA Executive Director Andrew Kitaka, according to the Daily Monitor.
“The current lake level is expected to remain so for a foreseeable future and renders any use of these sections untenable,” Okurut wrote in the letter.
The chairperson of Munyonyo Fish Forkers Company, Dizy Mukasa Nabaweesi, said she would continue negotiations with Buganda Land Board (BLB) to ensure they are left to work at Mulungu Landing Site.
“Our vendors left the submerged area two months ago and we shifted to a safer area at the upper side of the landing site. It is safe for us to continue working here because common sense can’t allow anyone to vend from water,” Nabaweesi said.