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Uganda: Five Kenyans Take Kampala to Court Over ‘Excess Water’ On Lake Victoria

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Five Kenyans have sued the Ugandan government for allegedly failing to control floods around the shores of Lake Victoria, resulting in displacement of people and damage to their property.

Former president of the Law Society of Kenya, Isaac Okero, and four others are accusing Uganda of violating their fundamental human rights by breaching the EAC Treaty and the Nile Basin Comprehensive Framework Agreement on how much water Kampala is supposed to release from Lake Victoria.

They have enjoined the East African Community (EAC) and the Lake Victoria Basin Commission in the suit, while Kenya and Tanzania governments are named as interested parties.

“As citizens of Kenya, who reside in Kisumu and are owners of real property located within the vicinity of the shores of the Lake, we have been greatly inconvenienced by the decision by Uganda,” says Mr Okero in the court filings. “As applicants we plead for the prayers and orders that Uganda is responsible for the compensation of loss and/or damage suffered by the applicants.

Order that loss and/or damage suffered by the applicants assessed by the court are paid by Uganda.” The five say that Uganda’s breach has caused flooding that has damaged property and displaced more than 50,000 people around the Lake. They accuse Eskom Uganda Ltd, the biggest hydro electricity generating company in the country, of increasing or reducing the volumes of water flowing from the lake based on how much is needed to meet Uganda’s electricity demand. They say the Owen Falls dam, now known as Nalubaale Dam, was built in 1954 as part of a hydropower station in Jinja after Uganda and Egypt signed agreements that the East African country would not do anything to interfere with the flow of the Nile, the world’s longest river.

The water flow arrangements were expressed in a series of agreements entered into in 1949 and 1953 between Britain and Egypt and in 1991 between Uganda and Egypt, from which emerged a policy to release water at particular rates to allow for natural flow out of the Lake. “This policy became commonly known as “The Agreed Curve” which was incorporated into the release policy governing the management of the outflow of Lake Victoria waters into the River Nile at Jinja by Uganda as provided for in the agreements,” they say.