The National Environment and Management Authority (NEMA) has requested Parliament for additional resources to a tune of Shs10.74Bn to purchase 7 new motor vehicles to enable the Authority monitor the environment in Uganda.
The request was made by Emmanuel Otaala, Chairperson Parliament’s Committee of Environment and Natural Resources while appearing before the Budget Committee to present the sectoral report on the 2024/25 National Budget framework paper.
According to Otaala, NEMA has an aging fleet of vehicles for environmental equipment including Mobile Air and water quality monitoring equipment, field inspection fleet, noise and vibration meters among others and although the Authority has a fleet of 40 motor vehicles, 30 of which are in dangerous mechanical condition.
“These motor vehicles are necessary to facilitate degradation incidence responses, field monitoring and office operations. NEMA has embarked to purchase at least 7 motor vehicles in 2024/25 but the fleet requirement is still high, given the national demand. The committee recommends that Government provides Shs10.74Bn to NEMA for purchase of vehicles for environmental monitoring,” he said.
NEMA’s request comes at the time the world is moving towards acquisition of electric cars in order to reduce effects of climate change and this request will raise concern from environmentalists.
The Authority is also requesting for additional Shs5.93Bn to cater for the recruitment for more staff under the environment protection force.
During the meeting, the Committee on Environment also warned against the move by Government to merge agencies in this sector like the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA) and National Forestry Authority (NFA) and have them main-streamed back to the Ministry of Water and Environment, warning that such a move would distablise Uganda’s aviation industry and further bar any flights from landing at Entebbe International Airport.
“All countries have a specialised agency to deal with aviation, not a department or a section under a Ministry. Which means that Uganda which is a landlocked country we are even killing our aviation industry which means planes will not be able to land into Uganda or fly out of Uganda. This is how disastrous this decision will be,” said Otaala.
He also welcomed the decision by Parliament to halt the omnibus merger of agencies as had earlier been planned by the Ministry of Public Service in 2023, saying having sectoral Committee scrutunise the proposals of these mergers as separate bills would enable special cases as that of the Uganda National Meteorological Authority (UNMA).
“It should be noted that the merger will have implications on the signed on the signed international protocols that will not be fulfilled due to accreditations that had been done on individual entities as opposed to the Ministry,” remarked Otaala.
He argued that although the overall objective of the merger is to eliminate structural and functional duplication, specialised entities under the water and environment sector such as UNMA and NFA shouldn’t be merged or main-streamed.
