Permanent Secretary Alfred Okot Okidi says funding shortfalls, rising land compensation costs, climate change and inadequate enforcement staff are slowing project implementation and weakening environmental protection.
The Ministry of Water and Environment says it receives less than 40% of the funding required to fulfil its mandate, hampering service delivery and slowing the implementation of government projects across the country.
The ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Alfred Okot Okidi, told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee – Central Government that the funding shortfall affects both domestic programmes and externally funded projects that require government counterpart funding.
“We probably get not more than 40 percent of what we need, so the budget needs to be stepped up,” Okidi told the committee.
He said inadequate funding was among several challenges affecting the ministry’s operations, alongside difficulties in acquiring land, rising compensation costs, climate change and shortages of personnel responsible for enforcing environmental protection laws.
Okidi explained that delays in acquiring land and compensating affected communities were slowing project implementation, with rising compensation costs making the process increasingly difficult.
He also identified climate change as a growing threat to water and environmental management, citing changing rainfall patterns and flooding in several parts of the country.
He pointed to flooding in Kampala and Kasese as examples of the effects of extreme weather, warning that the challenges required stronger measures to protect communities and manage water resources.
The permanent secretary further raised concerns about inadequate equipment for meteorological services, saying the ministry needed more automated weather stations to improve the accuracy and localisation of forecasts.
He said the shortage of equipment limited the ministry’s ability to provide district-specific forecasts that would help communities and other sectors prepare for changing weather conditions.
Enforcement of environmental protection laws remains another challenge, particularly in wetlands, riverbanks, lakeshores and forest reserves.
Okidi said the ministry lacked sufficient personnel to effectively monitor and protect these areas, calling for additional environmental rangers to strengthen enforcement across the country.
The ministry is also facing staffing gaps in key departments responsible for climate change, forestry and wetlands management, limiting its capacity to implement programmes and enforce environmental regulations.