Egypt has been locked for more than a decade in a dispute
with other countries through which the river passes, refusing
changes to colonial-era treaties contested by Ethiopia and other
upstream nations.
Under the pact signed in 1929, Egypt is entitled to 55.5
billion cubic metres a year, the lion’s share of the Nile’s
total flow of around 84 billion cubic metres, despite the fact
some 85 percent of the water originates in Ethiopia.
Cairo has said it will not recognise a new agreement signed
last May, and Ethiopia, ignoring Egypt’s long-standing concerns,
started work on the $4.78 billion dam this month.
“We are ready to negotiate and engage ourselves at the
higher and technical level, but we are an independent country,”
Ethiopian Foreign Minister Hailemariam Desalegn said when asked
if Addis Ababa was willing to allow Cairo to inspect the dam
over fears it could affect the flow of the river.
“The cooperative framework agreement (signed by upstream
countries) gives this option (examination) to all countries, so
we have to engage ourselves to an agreement where we can work
together equally,” he told a news conference.
Ethiopia has built five huge dams over the last decade and
aims to produce 15,000 MW of power within 10 years to overcome
chronic power shortages and export to other energy-starved
African countries.
Analysts have expressed fears that the dispute over the
river could spark war. Tensions rose last month when Burundi
joined five other countries — Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda,
Tanzania — and signed the new pact.
Egypt, threatened by rising temperatures and a growing
population, is almost entirely dependent on the Nile for its
water and has been nervously watching hydro-electric power dam
projects take shape in upriver nations.
Ethiopia says it will be forced to finance the dam from its
own coffers and from the sale of government bonds because Egypt
was pressuring donor countries and international lenders not to
fund its dam projects.
However, Hailemariam said relations had improved since the
downfall of Hosni Mubarak’s autocratic regime in Egypt earlier
this year, and that Egyptian authorities were willing to
cooperate with the signatory countries.
“There’s a new momentum now in Egypt after the revolution,
there’s desire from all sides that we should engage ourselves
together, closing all the past chapters, because there were ups
and downs in the past,” Hailemariam said.
(Editing by George Obulutsa and Michel Rose)
