Government has watered down all torture claims and other forms of mistreatment of the fishing community by Fisheries Protection Unit (FPU) under the command of Lt. Col. James Nuwagaba.
Last week Speaker of Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, suspended the house after Prime Minister Dr. Ruhakana Rugunda failed to show up in the house to explain all allegations of apprehending, beating and killing of fishermen.

Fisheries Protection Unit was in February 2017 instituted by President Museveni in an intervention to revive the fish potential and hence the ongoing operations.
Parliament chaired by Deputy Speaker Jacob Oulanyah, , State Minister for Veteran Affair Lt. Col. (Rtd) Bright Rwamirama denied the allegations saying it is not true that the enforcers apprehend persons with mature fish.

He said, officers confiscate immature fish as prescribed in laws where, any person who in any waters of Uganda captures kills or injures any fish which is immature, buys or exposes for sale, in any waters in Uganda commits a crime.
“We find it unreasonable for some leaders to judge the UPDF’s enforcement on the account of false or wrong information and unfairly generalizing the entire UPDF as brutal, and extortionist in nature without any evidence,”

The continued decline of fish stocks and the limited capacity to regulate the sub sector led to the use of parallel enforcement systems and use of authorized officers and the subsequent mushrooming of impostors which led to further decline in fish stocks.

According to Rwmirama, the current operations on lakes Victoria, Edward and George have revived stocks of the Nile perch quantities in Lake Victoria and reduced foreign exploitation of water resources and as result four fish factories have started operations and two more are scheduled to resume operations next month.

Jinja Municipality East MP, Paul Mwiru weighed in saying fishing business has become very lucrative to the UPDF and they don’t listen to anybody except the president.

“We don’t support illegal fishing because there are over 500,000 Ugandans engaged in fishing and the industry supports over two million people. I have two suggestions; there should be a minister in charge of fisheries to address the issues we put to him and the powers to manage fishing activities should go back to the fisheries department,” he said.

The matter was then referred a committee responsible for fisheries to handle expeditiously and come back with a report.

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More than 3 million people died as a result of harmful use of alcohol in 2016, according to the latest report released by the World Health Organization (WHO).

According to the report, this represents 1 in 20 deaths. More than three quarters of these deaths were among men. Overall, the harmful use of alcohol causes more than 5 percent of the global disease burden.

Dubbed, “Global status report on alcohol and health 2018” it presents a comprehensive picture of alcohol consumption and the disease burden attributable to alcohol worldwide. It also describes what countries are doing to reduce this burden.

“Far too many people, their families and communities suffer the consequences of the harmful use of alcohol through violence, injuries, mental health problems and diseases like cancer and stroke,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO. “It’s time to step up action to prevent this serious threat to the development of healthy societies.”

Of all deaths attributable to alcohol, 28 per cent were due to injuries, such as those from traffic crashes, self-harm and interpersonal violence; 21 per cent due to digestive disorders; 19 per cent due to cardiovascular diseases, and the remainder due to infectious diseases, cancers, mental disorders and other health conditions.

Despite some positive global trends in the prevalence of heavy episodic drinking and number of alcohol-related deaths since 2010, the overall burden of disease and injuries caused by the harmful use of alcohol is unacceptably high, particularly in the European Region and the Region of Americas.

Globally an estimated 237 million men and 46 million women suffer from alcohol-use disorders with the highest prevalence among men and women in the European region (14.8 per cent and 3.5 per cent) and the Region of Americas (11.5 per cent and 5.1 per cent). Alcohol-use disorders are more common in high-income countries.

Global consumption predicted to increase in the next 10 years
An estimated 2.3 billion people are current drinkers. Alcohol is consumed by more than half of the population in three WHO regions – the Americas, Europe and the Western Pacific. Europe has the highest per capita consumption in the world, even though its per capita consumption has decreased by more than 10 percent since 2010. Current trends and projections point to an expected increase in global alcohol per capita consumption in the next 10 years, particularly in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions and the Region of the Americas.

How much alcohol are people drinking?
The average daily consumption of people who drink alcohol is 33 grams of pure alcohol a day, roughly equivalent to 2 glasses (each of 150 ml) of wine, a large (750 ml) bottle of beer or two shots (each of 40 ml) of spirits.

Worldwide, more than a quarter (27 percent) of all 15–19-year-olds are current drinkers. Rates of current drinking are highest among 15–19-year-olds in Europe (44 per cent), followed by the Americas (38 per cent) and the Western Pacific (38 per cent). School surveys indicate that, in many countries, alcohol use starts before the age of 15 with very small differences between boys and girls.

Worldwide, 45 per cent of total recorded alcohol is consumed in the form of spirits. Beer is the second alcoholic beverage in terms of pure alcohol consumed (34 percent) followed by wine (12 per cent). Worldwide there have been only minor changes in preferences of alcoholic beverages since 2010. The largest changes took place in Europe, where consumption of spirits decreased by 3 per cent whereas that of wine and beer increased.

In contrast, more than half (57 per cent, or 3.1 billion people) of the global population aged 15 years and over had abstained from drinking alcohol in the previous 12 months.
More countries need to take action
“All countries can do much more to reduce the health and social costs of the harmful use of alcohol,” said Dr Vladimir Poznyak, Coordinator of WHO’s Management of Substance Abuse unit. “Proven, cost-effective actions include increasing taxes on alcoholic drinks, bans or restrictions on alcohol advertising, and restricting the physical availability of alcohol.”
Higher-income countries are more likely to have introduced these policies, raising issues of global health equity and underscoring the need for greater support to low- and middle-income countries.

Almost all (95 percent) countries have alcohol excise taxes, but fewer than half of them use other price strategies such as banning below-cost selling or volume discounts. The majority of countries have some type of restriction on beer advertising, with total bans most common for television and radio but less common for the internet and social media.
“We would like to see Member States implement creative solutions that will save lives, such as taxing alcohol and restricting advertising. We must do more to cut demand and reach the target set by governments of a 10 per cent relative reduction in consumption of alcohol globally between 2010 and 2025,” added Dr Tedros.
Reducing the harmful use of alcohol will help achieve a number of health-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those for maternal and child health, infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases and mental health, injuries and poisonings.

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