Dear Vasco, After a long time I'm back on this forum to support you on your opinion in response to the article in "The Observer" bi-weekly regarding the above subject. First and foremost I add my voice to yours in appreciating the little BAT has done by offering the 7 scholarships. Indeed this is a good starting point for BAT, if they hadn't done so before; and a good entry point for stakeholders, including you and me to lobby for more of such scholarships even for higher level studies, research and general development assistance in the region. Surfice it to mention some of the contributions BAT has made to the West Nile Region both in the recurrent and capital sence. The former being in terms of royalties (taxes/budgetary contributions) to districts in the region albeit without the desired transparency and the latter being the contribution it made towards establishing Ragem Technical Institute through the brave and intelligent investment auspices of Arua Diocese. To date, since its establishment the Institute has churned out hundreds, if not thousands of skilled youths, making invaluable contributions to the construction industry and other economies in the region. The above positive contributions have not come without despondency. The environmental scene of West Nile casts BAT as a resident evil or the biohazard in the region. This is largely due to BAT's pronounced corporate presence and aggressive seasonal economic activities in the region being (erroneously) proportioned to the degraded environment. Perhaps BAT's contribution to the environmental degradation could be an indirect one; higher levels of income and education, promoting periodic improvements in lives, seasonal recklessness in social behavoiurs, higher populations and thus pressure on the limited land resources. Recent human movements in the region could be indicators of this. All these assertions however need a detailed research. As a professional in Forestry, soil, water and environmental issues, I would like to note in addition to BAT's role, the significant contributions of institutional over-exploiting of the wood reserves and our routine high domestic wood consumption/destruction for food production and habitat, basically ordained by the ever increasing population and little if any care for mitigation measures to restore the wood supply systems. Coupled with this is our culture of annual bush burning (destroying the wood stocks in their young stages of coppicing), leaving herbacious and vulnerable new-growth vegetations of insignificant economic and environmental values. Professionally I would apportion the largest blame on our failure at macro and micro levels to make effective policies coupled with uncompromized enforcement, and our lack of moral evaluation (conscience) of our daily leaving habits or (economic) activities. Unless we re-evaluate our actions what ever good gestures or interventions by corporates, individuals and any stakeholder will not make a significant impact on our society or environment. I would like to concur with you that the scholarships in no way offer commensurate compensation for the abuse of children through child labour. I want to believe that the scholarships are just some corporate gesture (or meagre appreciation for the region's great contribution to BAT's revenues?). But largely that the continued child abuse is a severe manifestation of the lack of appreciation of the future values of the children by parents, us the community members and public policy makers/enforcers. BAT on its part has a strong policy statement on and occasionally monitors adherence to its opposition to abuse of child labour in its commercial activities. As a business BAT has the necessary structures to promote its trade with minimal governance structures to ensure strict adherence to the opposition to abuse of child labour, but the government more so at the lowest level has the machinery to control child abuse, including controlling usie of child labour. What is the latter doing on its part? To the least I beg to differ on the contribution of boreholes to environmental degradation. One may condemn boreholes in the short run as a result of little or no scientific proof on their significance in contributing to lowering the water table or severely affecting the land/soil mechanics (if you have some literature on that please share it with me my Brother, I currently work with boreholes). However, reservoir tanks as you request us to move to, may even do more harm than the boreholes; they would still need water anyway from the streams, rivers, ponds, lakes, boreholes, run-off, rain; and they may be more prone to contamination thus calling for higher water treatment costs while at the same time increasing losses through leakages, wastage and evaporation. It is a researched fact that ground water majorly occurs in the regolith (weathered rock) and fractured rock; the same sources that the streams and rivers draw their waters from yet warping and sagging of our land surfaces have never been linked to the draw-down due to water loss through the afore-mentioned massive surface water bodies. We would need to agree that where BAT offers boreholes or alternative portable water options, lets receive then with thanks and lobby (or really demand?) for more. I do appreciate your concern that we need to continue lobbying to improve the welfare of our farmers and the community. We could open this further beyond the tobacco undustry by taking a wider approach involving all the major stakeholders; be it the policy makers/enforcers, the tobacco companies like BAT, LTC, MTC, and all players in the agricultural and other economic activities. We need to task the district administrations to become transparent enough to inform the communities on the contributions made by the agricultural (and tobacco) sectors towards development in the region. Thanks my dear Brother Vasco as we move on with the struggle Aggrey Adrale
--- On Wed, 1/6/11, Vasco Oguzua <[email protected]> wrote: From: Vasco Oguzua <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [WestNileNet] BAT Contributes to Education To: "A Virtual Network for friends of West Nile" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, 1 June, 2011, 0:19 Dear Members, I found and read this about BAT. http://www.observer.ug/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13589&Itemid=106 If this story is true, I would wish people on the ground confirm if indeed BAT has at last tried to take some limited Social responsibility for their disastrous activities in tobacco growing areas, especially West Nile after such a long period of exploitation without any visible benefits to the communities involved. If they have doing what is written here, it is a good start but not nearly enough considering how much they have profited from the sweat of our people and how damaged our environment has become. I would add that the BAT is one of the contributing factors to the current acute water shortage we are experiencing in our region (most boreholes are almost dry when I last observed in April, 2011). The environmental and Health implications of BAT activities in West Nile require BAT to do much more that what they are attempting to do now. Moreover we have lost lives and I wonder if all tobacco farmers have been paid of their dues from since two years ago. Farmers who still insist on growing tobacco need to be paid timely and the fair price for their produce. I sincerely do not believe the 7 or so scholarships BAT has given is West Nile is sufficient to compensate for the cost of child Labour they have entertained in West Nile for decades. I would add that more pressure needs to be exerted on BAT to do more, especially, in addressing water shortage and provide more in the area of education if they indeed have started sponsoring students. We should begin to think of moving away from boreholes to building water tanks if we are to think of water Conservation measures because to more boreholes in the region also has a drastic effect on reducing water tables, which over time result into warping of and sagging of our land surface. Thanks, Vasco Oguzua -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________ WestNileNet mailing list [email protected] http://orion.kym.net/mailman/listinfo/westnilenet WestNileNet is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/ All Archives can be found at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ The above comments and data are owned by whoever posted them (including attachments if any). The List's Host is not responsible for them in any way. _______________________________________________
