By Mulengera Reporters
Presiding over as Chief Guest at the opening ceremony of the 8th edition of Uganda Water & Environment Week (UWEW) at the Water Ministry headquarters in Luzira, where she represented Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa, OPM’s General Duties Minister Justine Kasule Lumumba revealed why this was the most important Ministry in Uganda.
She used the same platform to call on her Minister colleague Beatrice Atim Anywar to become more outspoken, relentless, unrepentant and aggressive during Cabinet meetings and Parliament sessions while mobilizing support for the sector to become more resourced financially and otherwise.
Saying these were her personal views, and not her Principal Tayebwa’s, Lumumba called on Anywar and other Water & Environment sector leaders “not to underestimate” themselves but to always walk with their “heads high” because they lead the most important Ministry not only in Uganda but anywhere else in the world.
“Imagine if you guys woke up and decided to withhold water and nobody was allowed access it for a certain period, human, animal and plant life will all come to a halt and everything in the whole country will eventually die. Withholding water will bring everything to a standstill. Industrialization and energy projects will all come to a standstill because of that single action,” Lumumba said.
She added that if anyone took away the trees and other plants from man’s surroundings, life will immediately become unbearable as human beings and livestock will have no access to oxgyen without which life will come to an end.
“As the Minister in charge of SDGs at the OPM, still I can tell you that water & environment is everything. We have 17 SDGs yet none of them can sustainably be delivered upon without depending on water and environment,” Lumumba said making specific reference to those SDGs relating to hunger and food security whose realisation she said is wholly dependent on water availability more than anything else.
Lumumba, who organisers recognised for always being supportive of the water & environment resources protection and preservation agenda during Cabinet meetings, said what must happen is for the political leaders at the Luzira-based Ministry to speak more aggresively and with greater clarity during meetings like Cabinet and Parliament sessions where the national cake-sharing decisions are always made from.
She pledged personal support for such proposals for increased funding allocation coming from the Water Ministry. Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa, whose speech Lumumba read out, promised as much support whenever requests for additional funding ever come to his attention as the presiding officer at Parliament.
This is how Lumumba tipped Beatrice Anywar, who was the main sector political leader present after the senior Minister Sam Cheptoris got indisposed and delegated her to take charge: “So, my dear sister, in all these meetings, just be water itself and environment by persuasively making out a very good case. We shall always be at hand to support you and in the end, you will get what you want. The resources which this sector needs are always there at the center and all you need to do is just be tactical, you will succeed.”
Lumumba, who has been in government and at the top decision-making table of this country for more than 20 years, also suggested a more collaborative approach between the Ministry of Water and that of Agriculture. She said that, working closely together, both Ministries are supposed to be at the forefront of implementing or supporting the rolling out of the Parish Development Model (PDM) on which the President is these days very keen.
She asserted that PDM is calculated and targeted at impacting up to 38% of the population, something which the President is these days prioritizing while working very hard to economically transform peasants through agricultural activities, which are reliant on water availability. Lumumba said this makes PDM a very good entry point Anywar must leverage as she moves to make a case in Cabinet on why her Water & Environment sector must urgently become better-resourced.
“Even the other 38% of the population that is slightly above and better off than those in the subsistance sector equally have to be reliant on water to sustain their current status or even do better through deepening of technologies like irrigation,” Lumumba counseled imploring Anywar to sit with her technical teams and put their act together.
“Make use of your highly competent PS [Dr. Alfred Okidi] and even begin to consider policy re-adjustments to be able to keep making a more compelling case while clearly pointing out key intervention areas that require urgent funding.”
Lumumba added that the good thing is that these days, there are higher levels of awareness even among peasants in rural Uganda about water access-related rights. She asserted that this is an opportunity for Anywar and the rest of the Minitstry leaders to work closely with the CSOs to amplify popular advocacy so that the water & environment services-related interventions are funded more and given greater priority.
She said these days Ugandans even in peasant households are demanding and want to have water access at family level and not merely community level anymore as used to be the case. That there is countrywide pressure by ordinary people onto their leaders while demanding higher and more abundant access to safe and affordable water for both domestic and commercial use.
“These days some of the people in the community are conducting industrial and manufacturing activities of some sort at their household level and that’s where they are demanding to be served with water from.” Lumumba also referred to growing cases of livestock farming at the household level, which she said had also increased demand for water.
Lumumba also spoke about the need for the Ministry to be resourced to be able to effectively support access to livelihood for not less than 85% of the population who directly depend on agriculture for income and subsistance purposes. She said to effectively serve all these, in a country whose population is rapidly growing, the Ministry obviously requires to be facilitated, resourced and financed to more appropriate levels.
Lumumba, who previously served as NRM Secretary General and also the Government Chief Whip in Parliament in both cases closely working with President Museveni, further said that all this is an easy case to be made out and be understood except that the Water & Environment Ministry political and technical leadership has to re-align their advocacy approaches and be very deliberate about the same.
“We are all talking about industrialization and manufacturing all of which are reliant on water availability. All these processes require water and a lot of it. And the scope of demand for water is increasing everywhere in the country.”
She added that: “More and more hospitals are being built and health centers elevated. How are we going to sustainably run all these without depending on water? We have more administratives units and cities coming up to accelerate prosperity and the socio-economic transformation of the country. How is any of these going to be possible without water?”
Lumumba concluded her remarks by saying that the Ministry of Water & Environment is too purposeful to be ignored when it comes to the need to use public purse to resource the natural resources sector.
In an earlier speech, Anywar had spoken about constraints facing the Ministry and thereby constraining the effective delivery of water and environment-related services. Among other things, the Minister revealed that currently, only 46% of the Ministry’s funding and resourcing requirements was being made. (For comments on this story, get back to us on 0705579994 [WhatsApp line], 0779411734 & 041 4674611 or email us at mulengeranews@gmail.com).
