Water weed affects economy of Nyanza

By DANN OKOTH

It is mid-day in the lakeside city of Kisumu. Lwang’ni hotel, located on the shores of Lake Victoria, barely operates. Only a handful of customers can be seen taking lunch.

Ordinarily, at this time, the hotel would be bursting at its seams with customers who would be jostling for seats to have a share of fish delicacies served. This is now a scene in the distant past.

Elsewhere on the beach, fishermen, traders and tourists would converge to transact business deals and recreate – but this is now no more – thanks to the water hyacinth invasion that has dealt a death blow to the economic activity of the entire Winam-Gulf.

A visit to the lakeshore in Kisumu reveals a gloomy picture with a green carpet of the obnoxious weed replacing the blue waters and related activities on the lake – deposed fishermen joke that they can now offer to sell parcels of the lake as land to unwitting buyers.

The economic impact of the weed’s invasion is however great – from the small kiosk businesses on the beach to the big tourists hotels and fish processors, the consequences are tragic with losses running into billions of shillings.

Alfayo Onyango a local fisherman had to stop the activity for eight months due to the weed invasion.

“One of my children never sat his Standard Eight exams because of lack of fees and three others have also dropped out of school for the same reason,” he says.

Onyango could collect between Sh3,000 and 2,000 a day from fishing, an income which made him enroll his three children in private school.

However, this is now history and today, he would be lucky to go home with Sh200 earned mainly from doing odds jobs like washing cars and harvesting hyacinth.

“Apart from fishing, I could also use my boat to ferry tourists into the lake which earned me extra income. Now prospects are quite grim. I’m forced to beg at times in order to fend for my family,” he says.

The Lake Victoria Basin has an estimated population of 30 million people according to the Ministry of Planning and National Development and the population is likely to double in the next 15 years.

There are about 60,000 fishermen on the Nyanza side, who depend on the lake for their livelihood, but more than 50 per cent have lost employment due to the hyacinth and as fish stocks fell since 2005, according Nyanza Fisheries department.

Although fish from Lake Victoria has an annual turnover of Sh2.5 billion, pundits claim this has now been wiped off in the last two years due water hyacinth.

“The industry loses at least Sh2 billion annually in fish proceeds due to hyacinth invasion,” says Peter Mireri of Osienala, an NGO agitating for environmental restoration of Lake Victoria.

He says that apart from losses incurred from fish sales, fishermen have also borne the brunt of incurring heavy losses in fish gear investment.

“At least 400 boats have been dilapidated in Kendu Bay alone. Each boat costs between Sh250 and Sh400,000 in the region. This amounts to about Sh16 million in losses,” he says.

He says most of the boats are built by wood and if they stayed in the water for more than three months, they will be rendered obsolete.

He says the fishermen have also lost fishing gear such as nets, ropes and hooks, adding to the mounting losses incurred so far.

“Each net costs between Sh18,000 and Sh20,000. For each trip, a boat would cast about 30 nets but most of these have been abandoned due to the hyacinth,” he adds.

The losses caused by the hyacinth cut across many sectors of the region’s economy and its real implications in terms of fiscal loss yet to be estimated.

Fishermen have also faced problems of insecurity in the lake. Many   also do not have life-saving jackets. This makes it difficult for any rescue operation in case a boat capsises.

And it is a reason people who travel in the lake die when such accident occurs.