Hassan Latif, a water safety coach attached to Masdar says that Busoga sub-region is still grappling with the challenge of managing drowning cases due to overloading of passenger boats and use of illegal boats during fishing activities.
One of the UPDF officers, manning the Nile bridge checkpoint, who preferred to speak on condition of anonymity, says that they thoroughly checked Bave before they cleared him to access the bridge but he jumped into the river about 200 meters away from them.
Philemon Kudeera, the coordinator of the project, says that his colleagues were sensitized on the merits of the project and have since embraced it. He says that the construction of such a facility will boost safety sensitization drives across the Lake Victoria shoreline in Jinja and the surrounding areas.
The deceased has only been identified as Owonda, a fisherman attached to Kijangi landing site in Tonya parish Buseruka sub county in Hoima district. Julius Hakiza, the Albertine region police spokesperson confirmed the incident saying they have launched investigations.
“A big boat together with the engine costs about Shillings 3.5 million and most of the fishermen who cannot afford such continue to use small boats well aware that, their lives are at risk more so during this rainy season,” he said.
Yusuf Mukisa, a fisherman says that before the dumping started, each of them would catch on average 15 mature fish but the fish catch has since dropped, which has deprived them of their livelihood.
The fishermen told URN on Thursday that some fishermen had resorted to fish poisoning so as to harvest more yet in the long run threatening the sustainability of the fisheries sector to compete on the global market.
Gen. Kyanda explained that AFALU is not accountable to anyone and their excesses are blamed on the Fisheries Protection Unit personnel who in most cases not aware of their unscrupulous operations.
Patrick Ochieng, a resident of Singila village accused some FPU officers of conniving with their civilian counterparts to confiscate their fishing nets and charge them between 200,000 and 300,000 to recover them.
The deceased has been only identified as Kumakech, a fisherman attached to Mbegu landing site in Kabaale Sub county Hoima district. His other colleague who survived the boat accident is only identified as Opio.
