By Ebenezer T. Bifubyeka (Ten), Biafra, Mbarara, western uganda.
NATIONAL environmental management authority (NEMA) has halted the stone quarrying firm at Kakoma, Kakiika, Kashari in Mbarara over pollution and property destruction by the explosives used to break rocks into aggregates. This is done by Stirling Civil Engineering Construction Company that is rehabilitating Mbarara-Ntungamo road.
Bravo NEMA! However, your significant intervention was overdue. Prevention shall always be better than cure. Firms breaking rocks should first ensure and demonstrate how they intend to contain the eventualities that may accrue from their developments such as huge, rolling stones that their quarrying machines cast as far as three kilometers away!
Kakoma residents complain that the blasts from the quarrying firm are as noisy as a bomb blast; create huge clouds of dust that cover all water sources, pastures and crack their houses due to the tremor they cause! Residents also say that flu has hit most of them.
Jackson Kaheru, LC1 chairperson of Kakoma Cell, says the large flying particles of the rocks have cracked their houses over the earthquakes caused by the explosives’ tremor; and that their water has turned greenish due to the chemicals they use to blast the rocks!
Leave alone terrorising people with high blood pressure, cows no longer produce milk neither do the hens lay their eggs – all in the name of the terrorising noise, adds Kaheru, adding that feeder roads and paths in their area have been covered by rock particles.
Kaheru took a step to write to the constructors, asking them to meet the locals and see how to help them in vain! He is left with no choice option other than appealing to the government to give them boreholes and insure their houses against cracks.
Nickson Beinomugisha, who resides about 200 metres away from the stone quarrying firm, says he has lost walls and roof of his house worth sh100m to cracks.
Wearing a sad face, Beinomugisha adds that every week he repairs the cracks. The quarrying firm blasts rocks about eight times a month, he says, they don’t warn them in time before they blast the rocks! They suddenly tell them to go and hide in the hills for the whole day; sometimes they chase them before they prepare lunch!
NEMA’s western regional public awareness and information officer, Jeconious Musingwire intervenes, ‘We have halted that project. We shall not give them the certificate of environmental impact assessment (EIA) until a memorandum of understanding is signed between the project management and surrounding communities.
This is a message of hope; especially when Musingwire adds: NEMA shall ensure that in conditions of approval for this project, the element of compensation and provision of alternative water sources for the community members are included in the certification of the project; and make sure that those conditions are followed.
The EIA certificate of approval from NEMA is a legal instrument that a community can use to sue the management of the company in case they don’t compensate them for the damages caused or adhere to the memorandum of understanding that spells out how the project will work and co-exist with the community.
The project documented the associated impacts of the stone quarry, Musingwire says, but they did not identify other eventuality impacts of the project and impact the distant area – like the flying of stones that affect water sources and houses in the area.
As the report of this project is under review – bearing in mind the residents’ concern of vandalising their property like houses, crops and water sources, let’s hope that these issues will be considered in the approval process. Thank you!
End.
Word count: 594.
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