Lake Katwe - Uganda

 Lake Katwe is known throughout Uganda and the East African region for its substantial salt production and has been producing high quality salt for many years. Geographically, Lake Katwe is found within an explosion crater in the formerly active volcanic area north-east of Lake Edward and south-east of Lake George. The lake is found in the small run-down town of Katwe on the outskirts of the Queen Elizabeth National Park in the Kasese district and covers an area of approximately eight square miles. Its shores are lined with small ponds  or pans of water from which salt is extracted from the bottom in a process called salt panning.

Salt content of the lake waters is approximately 13.5 %. The lake bed is 0.8 meters thick and contains approximately over 12 million tonnes of salt, varying in composition and depth and has salt stocks, which are estimated to sustain an industrial extraction plant with a production rate of 7 tonnes of salt per hour for 34 years. On this basis, an industry to mechanize the salt production process was put in place in the 1970s by Uganda’s former  president, the late Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada to extract and recover salts from the Lake Katwe brine deposits. However, for a number of reasons, the project never took off to date and the Katwe salt project is now on the brink of privatization.

Partner organisation:

Agency for Environment and Wetlands (AEW)

Contact persons: Bombom, A. and Ssemwogerere, D.

P.O. Box 22618

Kampala, Uganda