West Division Chairperson Hon. Muhumuza Richard urges duty bearers to implement policies on natural resources management.

Hon. Muhumuza Richard the chairperson West division in Fort portal municipality has warned citizens on their human activities that have eroded the natural resources in the country leading to hazardous effects on environment. Uganda’s economy depends much on agriculture and when human practices are not checked chances are that the living conditions of both people and animals is at stake, there is need to strengthen the natural resources management committees to play their roles in rescuing the natural resources for people to do farming without being worried of unpredictable weather changes, said Hon. Muhumuza Richard.

Richard said these when he was hosted live on ToroDev’s supported weekly radio program “Manya Ekiragiro Kyawe” that discusses existing policies in Uganda and how they affect service delivery, the live discussions are aired every Wednesday 8:00pm-10:00pm on KRC FM and on 23^rd July 2017 the division chairperson was hosted to give accountability for the one year period spent in office as West division Chairperson.

Hon. Muhumuza Richard, West Division Chairperson in Fort Portal Municipality

Hon. Musinguzi further said that activities carried out by people in different wetlands have negatively  impacted a lot  on  climate change and many are due to increased human activities like;  increased demand of building materials, tree planting, and poor farming/agricultural practices.  The future of wetlands at the moment is questionable and enforcement agents should act accordingly and give all support including government in order to deal with encroachers who use wetlands for setting up tree plantations and settlements. He called upon all duty bearers and stakeholders especially environment officers to implement the existing policies on natural resources management to curb practices impacting negatively on climate change.

During the 2 hours live discussion, Hon. Muhumuza Richard gave accountability of what they have done as a division for 2016-2017 financial year; ‘’our achievements have been majorly on roads where we have opened access roads and improved on existing ones including, Muhoti-Kasojjo, Sakka- Kitere, Nyabukara- Kyamukerege, these roads have been constructed and plans of murraming them are set already, we have lobbied for a cervical cancer screening machine at Kagote HC 111 to improve health services especially for our mothers and hope to register positive impact in the health sector , youth and women groups have been mobilized where over 30 groups are currently benefiting from Youth Livelihood Program (YLP) and women fund, under operation wealth creation we have supplied seeds and heifers to some homesteads aimed at increasing household income despite the challenges under this sector, and we continue to work with all stakeholders in development to see that there is improved service delivery in communities’’, said Hon. Muhumuza. However, we still have sectors like water, education and much more effort is still needed in economic development sector, we need to lobby for increased budget allocations for lower local governments to support us achieve our plans and the concerns of our people.

We thank SIDA, NED, SPIDER, CIPESA & all our development partners for the great financial & technical support to run these programs.