The Standards, Wildlife, and Utilities Chief Magistrates Court has ordered a Turkish national to pay a fine of 200 million shillings for depositing soil in Lwajjali Wetland at Gongobe Village, Goma Division - Mukono District. Kerim Ray, the owner of a concrete-making company known as Yaman International Ltd, was issued an Environmental Impact Assessment certificate on the 14th of June this year to set up the project on a quarter of land. However, when officials from the National Environment Management Authority inspected the project later, they found that he had cleared 2.1 acres and backfilled the wetland with murram in a portion outside the approved area in the certificate, leading to his arrest on the 30th of June. In addition to the 200 million shillings fine, Kerim has been ordered by Chief Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu to remove the murram and restore the wetland within 30 days or serve a 5-year jail term if he fails to pay the fine. However, Chief Magistrate Gladys Kamasanyu considered the fact that Kerim pleaded guilty to the offenses and did not waste the court's time and resources by going through a full hearing, thus sparing him the maximum penalty of paying 2.6 billion shillings in fines or serving 26 years in jail. Kerim has been jointly convicted with a Ugandan, Eric Avunalo, but Chief Magistrate Kamasanyu only sentenced him to caution after he pleaded to the court that he was not aware that the area where he was backfilling with Murram was outside the approved area since he was acting on the instructions of his boss. Meanwhile, seven Chinese nationals who were arrested last week for illegally mining sand in Lwera Wetland in Kalungu District have been further remanded to Luzira Prison. They are facing charges of disturbing a wetland by drilling sand. When they were arraigned before the Standards, Wildlife, and Utilities Chief Magistrates Court in Makindye, they did not take any plea due to the absence of a Chinese interpreter.
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