Uganda’s Famous Kitagata Natural Hot Springs Up For Development

Mugira Fredrick 22/10/2007
Authorities in Uganda are calling for investors to develop the famous Kitagata natural hot springs in Bushenyi district as either a modern tourism site or a geothermal project.

Kitagata natural hot springs are situated in Bushenyi district about 350 kms west of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda.

Geresom Kabasekye Mukiga, the man in charge of these springs who is also a guide says there is need for an investor to develop the hot springs into a tourist site that can help government to earn revenues.

He says there is need for construction of a hotel close to the hot springs to always accommodate tourists that visit them. The hot springs are situated just in a walkable distance from the village town of Kitagata.

Speaking in Runyankore, the local language there, Kabasekye said that, “Up to 60,000 dollars is needed to develop the springs to become a standard tourist attraction site.” He laments that if the government owned springs are not given to investors to develop them, they might extinct because the local people are encroaching on them at a high rate. He says the local people neighboring the hot springs are planting eucalyptus trees close to them which are partly threatening to dry them.

Kitagata hot springs are also well known for their curative waters. Patients from as far as 100 kms flock the springs to soak themselves in the spring waters to heal them. Some other patients drink the sulphur rich waters of the hot springs for cure from rheumatism and arthritis.

It is on this background that officials from over ten districts of western Uganda that were attending a one day awareness workshop on promoting alternative energy sources in Uganda , on Monday 22/10/07 that urged health officials in the country to carry out intensify researches on these hot waters with an aim of using them as medicine.

At the same workshop, Bazira Henry a researcher and consultant with the National Association of Professional Environmentalists-NAPE appealed to districts in Uganda which have hot springs like Bushenyi to develop proposals for geothermal projects as one way of identifying other alternative energy sources.

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