The State Minister for Northern Uganda, Kenneth Omona, has directed the Ministry of Water and Environment to produce a detailed performance report on the delayed rehabilitation of the Agoro Irrigation Scheme in Lamwo District within three weeks.
The directive follows growing concerns from farmers in Agoro Sub-county, who say the multi-billion shilling irrigation project has failed to effectively support agricultural production despite years of rehabilitation works.
Agoro Irrigation Scheme, located in Tumanun A Village in Agoro Sub-county, Lamwo District, is among the largest irrigation schemes in Uganda. Constructed in the late 1960s, the scheme was designed to boost agricultural production during the dry season.
The irrigation project covers about 1,650 acres of arable land and has undergone rehabilitation since 2012 at a cumulative government cost of 30.7 billion shillings. However, farmers say the prolonged rehabilitation has failed to improve water supply to their gardens.
During a recent site visit to the scheme, Omona expressed disappointment over the delayed works, saying the project had failed to deliver the intended benefits to the local population.
“The production has actually now gone down because the people have stopped their native way of production. We hope that this project will get finished and help them rise up to this point,” Omona said.
The minister also questioned whether there was value for money in the project given the billions already spent and the slow pace of implementation.Omona noted inconsistencies between the original feasibility study and the actual implementation of the rehabilitation works.
He said local communities had raised concerns that the water reservoir was too small to effectively irrigate the entire project area.“Out of the nine blocks of the 1,650 acres of land, they can only irrigate three blocks in a day,” he said. “That is about 40 percent of the performance of the dam per day and I don’t think this is expected to increase production.”
The minister warned that unless the project is fully completed and operationalized, government risks continuously spending money on maintenance without enabling farmers to generate enough income to sustain the scheme.
Omona further directed the Ministry of Water and Environment to review the irrigation scheme’s design and consider conducting additional feasibility studies to determine whether more water sources or another dam may be required.
Records obtained by Uganda Radio Network indicate that three major construction firms have handled rehabilitation works at the scheme since 2012.
In 2012, Dot Services Limited was contracted at a cost of 20.7 billion shillings to undertake rehabilitation works, including leveling farmlands to ease water flow to gardens.
Although the company commissioned the scheme in 2013, farmers immediately raised concerns over inadequate water reaching their farms due to the deep canals. Following continued complaints, the Ministry of Water and Environment contracted GETS Technical Services Limited in 2018 at a cost of 1.58 billion shillings to carry out further rehabilitation works. Reports indicate that the contractor later faced implementation challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The government later contracted VIDAS Engineering Services to undertake hydraulic improvement works at the scheme.
Meanwhile, Charles Bwire, the Senior Engineer at the Ministry of Water and Environment’s Water for Production Regional Centre in Northern Uganda, defended the ongoing rehabilitation works, saying the current phase started in July 2024 and is targeting blocks one to six of the irrigation scheme.
Bwire explained that the initial rehabilitation works failed to address critical issues because some farmers resisted the leveling of farmland over fears of land grabbing.
“Previously, when the first contractor was contracted to undertake works, the team envisaged that the farm fields would be leveled. However, there was resistance from some beneficiaries for fear of grabbing their land and those farm fields were never leveled,” Bwire said.
According to Bwire, the ministry later conducted detailed topographic surveys after farmers allowed access to their plots, paving the way for hydraulic improvement designs.
Bwire said the ongoing rehabilitation had reached 85 percent physical progress, with major structures already complet
“As I speak we are at 85% physical progress and we have managed to complete all canal-to-pipe junction boxes, the off-take structures are all complete,” he said. We have completed the construction of all the outfall structures in all the blocks.”
He added that water can now reach all sections of blocks one to six, although some works remain incomplete.
Uganda Radio Network, however, understands that only six out of the nine blocks at the irrigation scheme have so far been rehabilitated.
Bwire said some farmers in blocks seven, eight and nine were skeptical about aerial surveys meant to map out their land, citing fears of land grabbing.
Despite the ongoing rehabilitation works, the contractor has committed to completing the remaining works, including the construction of tertiary canals and clearance of on-farm access routes, by the end of this month.
Agoro Irrigation Scheme draws water from River Okura into a reservoir in Tumanum Village with a holding capacity of 125 million litres of water-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
