Jonglei Canal resumption faces objection

The government through the national Ministry of Environment and Forestry has objected to the resumption of the Jonglei Canal project.

 It noted that the print and social media are awash with the reports of the arrival of equipment from Egypt to Unity State that is to be the dredging of Naam and Bahr el Ghazal rivers and the extensions for the resumption of the Jonglei Canal.

Josephine Napwon Cosmas, the National Minister of Environment and Forestry said that on the resumption of the Jonglei canal to drain the Sudd wetland to mitigate floods, her ministry will not approve the resumption or completion of the canal because of the ecosystem services that the Sudd Wetlands provide to the nation, region, and the world.

She added that she received a lot of calls in regard to the dredging and the resumption of the digging of the Jonglei Canal.

“The mandate of the Ministry of Environment is to protect, conserve and ensure the sustainable exploitation of the national resource for the benefit of the current and future generations. The genesis of the current development is the flooding that affected five of our states resulting in the displacement of nearly 800,000 people,” she said. 

“This flooding is a result of climate change and the ministry has developed mitigation and adaptation strategies for do not include dredging or the resumption of the Jonglei canals project,” she added.

Napkin said the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation is the proponent of the project and “we are yet to be notified officially by the Ministry of Resources and Irrigation requesting the conduct of comprehensive environmental and social impact assessment and Hydrological studies.  The ministry will form a team of environmental experts to conduct the scoping and screening of the project.”