Parliamentary Committee urges for Lake Victoria to be borderless.

 The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on regional integration Gideon Ochanda consults with LVBC Executive Secretary Ali Matano when the committee visited LVBC offices in Kisumu.The Committee urges for Borderless Lake Victoria so as to allow free movement of people, goods and services-Photo By Dickson Odhiambo

By Dickson Odhiambo

October 31, 2018.

Parliamentary Committee urges for Lake Victoria to be borderless.

 A PARLIAMENTARY Committee has said the boundaries along the Lake Victoria should be done away with so as to ease free Movement of people, goods and services within the Lake region.

Parliamentary Select Committee on Regional Integration and Northern Corridor says there should be no boundaries within the Lake Victoria which is shared by three Countries within the East African Community {EAC}.

Addressing the press when the Committee visited the Lake Victoria Basin Commission {LVBC} headquarters in Kisumu to see what the Agencies of the East African Community is doing to promote integration and cohesion, the Committee said the biggest problem has been the application of different legislation and regulations in terms of manning the Lake Victoria region.

Through its Chairman Gideon Ochanda, the Committee says there is need to do away with the Borders within the Lake Victoria, adding that there should be a borderless water resource.

The Committee says the issue of constant harassment of the fishermen especially from the Kenyan side has been as a result of the application of different legislation and regulations by member states of the East African Community.

“The issue of fish and the Lake is completely a different matter and the biggest problem has been that of applying of different legislation and regulations,” Ochanda says.

The committee says the EAC is trying to promote regional integration where a suggestion has been mooted that there should be no border including on land so as to allow free movement of people, goods and services, adding that this is exactly what should happen in the Lake Victoria.

“We need to have a free area where everybody works freely including fishermen in the lake Victoria. This is because the resource which the fishermen within Lake Victoria has been chasing in the name of fish even up to Uganda or Tanzania does not know what is known as a boundary as  fishermen will follow the fish whether in Kenya,  Uganda or Tanzania,” the Committee adds.

The Committee says there is need for the East African Community to work towards borderless Lake where regional legislation and regulations are synchronized so as to bring harmony.

“The only important thing is to harmonize our laws and regulations as the East African Community where our issues of security, environmental conversations among others are similar among the Members States and there is need to do away with the border,” the Committee further says.

The Committee Members who accompanied their Chairman include Dr. Eve Obara{MP Kabondo Kasipul} Mathias Robi of Kuria West and Kassim Tandawa Sawa of Matuga.

The issue of Border dispute between Kenya and Uganda erupted in the year 2009 when Ugandan Security forces manning the tiny Migingo Island allegedly begun to constantly harass Kenyan Fishermen there.

Kenyan fishermen has been complaining of constant harassment by the Uganda security forces manning the Island. 

This forced both the Kenyan and Ugandan Governments to carry out a joint border survey whose findings are yet to be made public.

The Joint Border Survey was to determine whether the tiny Island is in Kenya or Uganda.

Uganda has always maintained that the Island belongs to them while the Kenya Government has also maintained that it is in Migori County within Kenya.

Ugandan Security personnel were deployed in the Island around the year 2004 so as to deal with the issues of piracy which were becoming rampant within the Lake Victoria.

Since then, a Ugandan Flag has been hoisted in the Island, a matter that has reportedly brought tension between Uganda and Kenyan Security forces manning it with a move that the Kenyan Authority at one point wanted to hoist its flag there but allegedly failed to do so.

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