Addis Ababa: The Egyptian argument that the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam would affect the water flowing to the riparian countries has nothing to do with hydro-technical engineering, it rather sounds much more like political, an international energy expert noted.
Speaking to ENA, the Global Energy Association awarded expert Mikael Alemu urged Ethiopia to now consider the power distribution lines issue instead as the construction of the dam is getting completed.
Although the negotiation over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has been underway between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan for more than a decade, the trilateral negotiation has unfortunately failed to lead to an agreement.
Asked about Egypt’s position over GERD, the expert said the country’s repeated claim that the dam would affect the flow of the Blue Nile water is not scientifically rational.
‘I think the Grand Renaissance Dam doesn’t have engineering problems. Its (Egypt’s) claim sounds much more like political,’ Mikael said.
For him, lack of ge
nuine approach from Egypt’s side over the dam negotiation has resulted in keeping the issue as a source of divergence.
‘The reason why it’s not possible (to reach agreement) is because this is a very conveniently hot issue for Egypt. The political situation of Egypt seeks outside enemy. It’s very nice to have an outside enemy when your politics is troubled.’
On the contrary, Ethiopia’s position on GERD is very sensible and scientific, which is not against the interest of the people of Egypt and Sudan, the expert noted.
According to Mikael, Ethiopia is building a complicated and expensive hydro-technical dam with a total outlay of 5 billion US dollars that would benefit the downstream countries by regulating the flow of the river and causing no harm to Egypt economically.
The energy expert stated that there are many global cases of how countries utilize transnational rivers for various developments.
When one of the countries builds some vital hydro-technical enterprises on that river, it concerns other co
untries. In this regard, South East Asia, South America and the former Soviet Union (Russia) that share one large river have experiences to solve controversies and equitably use of the water, he elaborated.
So Ethiopia’s GERD is not an unprecedented case and international law supports the country’s efforts as long as it doesn’t bring significant harm to other countries.
Mentioning the importance of reaching agreement between the three riparian countries, at least for the predictability of future on the river, the expert argues that those countries could not be forced to sign an agreement.
‘Both countries (Egypt and Sudan) have no incentives to get closer to agreement. None need that agreement. Egypt does not need that agreement. Because technically there is not much danger that GERD can bring to Egypt. For me, it is a crazy argument for Ethiopia to like to stop water flowing to Egypt.’
The expert pointed out that what Ethiopia is doing with this water is protect people from flooding that causes humane and
material damage. So the claim is nonsense.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency