Just hours after a new report accused EAC member Uganda of contributing to the drop by secretly draining the lake, the bloc's secretary general said Uganda, along with Kenya and Tanzania, would be badly affected by the decline.

"We are soon going to have serious strains on trade because of the alarming receding lake water levels," Amanya Mshenga told reporters during a tour of Kisumu, Kenya's main inland port on Africa's largest lake.

"Shipment charges are already skyrocketing and this will eventually impact on the cost of trading among the three countries," he said, urging the Kenyan, Tanzanian and Ugandan governments to take swift action to address the problem.

Mshenga could not quantify the financial cost of the lake's dimiminishing level but said cargo loads at Tanzania's port of Mwanza had declined from an average of 100 tonnes to 80 tonnes over the past year due to receding waters.

"The problem is real and quick action must be taken with the support of the three governments," he said, noting that more than 30 million people in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania depend on Lake Victoria for their livelihoods.

Mshenga did not address the allegations of Ugandan responsibility for the decline in Lake Victoria's shorelines that have receeded 1.2 metres (3.9 feet), since 2003, marking its shallowest level since 1951.

Earlier Thursday, the US-based International Rivers Network released a study accusing Uganda of secretly draining water from the lake to sustain its electricity grids amidst a searing regional drought.

According to the report, which Ugandan officials have denied, more than half of the severe drop in Lake Victoria's levels in 2004 and 2005 can be attributed to a World Bank-funded hydroelectric project, the Owen Falls dams, in Uganda.

Nearly three percent, 75 cubic kilometres (18 cu. miles) of water, of the lake's total volume has been lost in the past three years, it said.

Mshenga said EAC delegates would meet next month in Tanzania to discuss the situation and try to come up with policy solutions to reverse the trend.

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