As floods continue wreaking havoc to thousands of people at Lake Albert in Bunyoro sub-region, President Museveni advises those living in flatlands of the lake to vacate them to avoid losing their property to the floods.
The president says he learnt of the calamity earlier, prompting him to fly his chopper to the affected areas so he could assess the gravity of the damage caused by the increasing levels of the floods.
Mr Museveni says given the occurrence, he has instructed the Prime Minister to respond to the floods that he attributes to God’s fury. He promises that government will evacuate the affected Lakers.
“I have asked the Prime Minister to respond to the floods and he is coming. However, the issue of floods is because of God. Sometimes we need wait for God’s wrath to calm down. We are going to relocate all those affected to another area,” Mr Museveni says.
However, the president says that during his inspection he observed that the affected people were those living in flatlands.
It is against this background that he advises that it would be wise that those areas are never inhabited again so that in case the floods return, they do not find any person there.
“You can leave it as it as a wetland so that when floods return, they don’t affect anyone but rather find a wetland. We shall get money to support and resettle those affected somewhere but this is what we have always told people,” Mr Museveni advises.
Adding: “This is what happened in Mt. Elgon. And you need to be careful with some leaders. We warned the people to leave the slopes and they refused. One night, the landslides came and it was now them calling us to relocate them.”
The president was also informed that due to the rising water levels of Lake Albert, the ferry at Wanseko in Buliisa district and that at Masindi Port in Kiryandongo district to Apac district has for the last four months not been operating.
He was also informed that River Kafu is also flooding leaving many gardens submerged.
Mr Barnabas Bagadira Kakuru, an elder at Wanseko landing site in Kigwera sub-county, Buliisa district recently told Kazi-njema News that the current floods of Lake Albert are a recurrence of those that hit the lake from 1962 to1964.
He forecast another repeat of the floods.
In response, Museveni says he will talk to experts from the Ministry of Works on the ferry whose services are affected by the floods.
On the issue of land grabbing, Museveni said the solution is cancelling all titles owned by land grabbers.
