Ethiopian Dam Tripartite Committee To Meet Soon In Cairo

A tripartite committee is to meet soon in Cairo to resume negotiations over Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam, state news agency MENA reported on Tuesday.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi and Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced last week after their meeting in Equatorial Guinea’s capital of Malabo that the committee will resume work after it was halted last December.

Egypt’s Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazy met on Tuesday with his Sudanese counterpart Moataz Moussa in Khartoum.

Moghazy said that he’d invited Moussa and Ethiopian Irrigation Minister Alamayo Tegno for more talks in Egypt over the issue.

The planned Grand Renaissance Dam is a $4.2 billion hydro-electric dam on the Blue Nile, one of the main tributaries of the Nile.

The project has been a source of concern for the Egyptian government since May last year, when images of the dam’s construction stirred public anxiety about possible effects on Egypt’s share of the Nile water, the country’s main source of potable water.

Meanwhile, Moghazy asked his Sudanese counterpart for help in bringing together views from Nile Basin countries on the dam’s issues and concerns.

The Sudanese minister welcomed Moghazy’s invitation and said it would be an opportunity for Nile Basin countries to cooperate.

Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan formed a tripartite technical committee to study the possible effects of the dam and try to generate consensus. Ethiopia maintains that Egypt’s water share will not be negatively affected by the successful completion of the project.

However, the tripartite committee’s success was thwarted last December when Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir announced his support for the dam during a meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn.

Source : Ahram online