The Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) sensitized residents of Nakiwogo community on waste management to maintain the safety of passengers that use the Entebbe International Airport.
The engagement that took place on Thursday, 20th June started with the residents’ tour around the airport with the CAA management team and a class session to emphasize the importance of proper waste management to avoid attraction of birds and ensuring safer skies which was held at its headquarters in Entebbe.
In his opening remarks, Eng. Ayub Sooma, the Director of Airport and Aviation Security at UCAA said that Entebbe is a bird sanctuary, which is good for tourism, but also presents challenges for the aviation industry because birds and aircraft do not co-exist, especially in an airport environment that why, UCAA maintains a Bird Hazard and Wildlife management section to ensure that there are no birds in the vicinity of the runway before a landing or take-off.
“The purpose of this is to ensure that birds do not collide with aircraft, which leads to tremendous damage to aircraft engines and disastrous accidents, which cost lives and property. Therefore, every effort must be put in place to ensure that this does not happen. So, proactive measures are paramount,” he highlighted.
In addition, the CAA’s director of airport and aviation security noted that Uganda is endowed with 1,060 different bird species, and Entebbe is a migratory path for birds from Europe which include the black kite, barn swallows, Crested Crane, and Egrets, among others that enhance the danger to aircraft.
“Among the measures to prevent convergence of birds in and around the airport, the Wildlife management unit monitors bird attractants like water ponds and waste management by the community in the vicinity of the airport, among others,” he added.
Eng. Sooma also remarked that this engagement to sensitize the Nakiwogo community on waste management is one of those such measures aimed at ensuring that they become more knowledgeable about bird activity and behaviour to avoid disposal habits that attract birds in and around the airport environment since they have no boundaries meaning that birds can feed in Nakiwogo and sleep at the airport.
Richard Ssekyondo the Entebbe Division B chairperson appreciated the CAA management for the good lessons offered to the residents and appealed for more sensitization engagements to the community to supplement on their role of making Entebbe Division B with a model village.
“Of recently, we developed a program known as “weyonje” aiming at proper sanitation of our area which is also in line with this, therefore, I guarantee you our support so that we not only maintain the passengers’ safety but also keep our area clean to attract more visitors since it’s the gateway of this beautiful country,” he added.
The Entebbe Division B chairperson also appealed to CAA for more support in terms of taxes especially property tax which they haven’t cleared for proper planning and service delivery.
Vianney Luggya the CAA’s spokesperson on that issue, highlighted that they are very compliant taxpayers who honor all their tax obligations not just the municipal taxes, and therefore requested the Entebbe municipal council to submit the invoice of the outstanding rates.
“There is an outstanding obligation that is known between CAA and Entebbe municipal council, we have previously engaged the municipal and advised them that before you increase the rates we need to first analyze and agree on them, so you cannot just provide an invoice of the revised rates that are not agreed on. Therefore as soon as we receive the invoice of the outstanding rates that are known, we shall settle it because as we speak now we haven’t received it yet,” he added.
During the same engagement, Luggya noted that starting with 21st – 28th June 2024, they expect Pilgrims who had gone to Mecca to be returning through Entebbe International Airport and therefore appealed to traveling passengers, especially departing passengers during that period to plan for more time and ensure that they are at the airport at least three hours to their scheduled departure time to avoid missing of flights.
“We shall only be permitting one vehicle to receive a returning pilgrim to enter the airport, the other bigger delegation an arrangement has been made on the nearby football pitch just outside the airport to wait for their loved ones from there however we have also put in place another welcoming area in the car parking on arrivals where those that have entered the airport will welcome their loved ones from. This has been done to ensure that we limit the number of people entering the airport so that the other users of the facility are not inconvenienced while at the same time, those that are welcoming their loved ones are also enjoying themselves,” he concluded.
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