Sudanese water resources minister: We respect water agreements with Cairo | Egypt Independent

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Sat, 12/12/2015 - 09:23

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Sudanese Minister of Water Resources and Electricity Moataz Moussa said that his country respects and is committed to all international agreements and conventions governing the usage of Nile River including the 1959 Egyptian-Sudanese agreement.

In statements on the sidelines of a six-party meeting, currently taking place in Khartoum, Moussa said Sudan is keen on solving problems concerning the Nile River waters via dialogue and joint committees' meetings.

Meanwhile, Egypt demanded to modify the meeting's agenda in which a technical meeting on environmental and technical studies was delayed, well-informed Sudanese sources said.

The meeting was planned to be attended by French and Dutch consultancy offices which are conducting the studies.

The sources also pointed out at the Dutch office's report that said that Ethiopia and Sudan will benefit from the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and did not mention Egypt in the study.

A meeting on the Renaissance Dam between the foreign and irrigation ministers of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia kicked off Friday in Khartoum.

The six-party meeting tackles technical aspects of the deadlocked Renaissance Dam talks, along with Cairo's concerns about the accelerated construction rates, which are not comm

Ethiopia Sees Nationwide Power Cuts While Drought Dries Dams - Bloomberg Business

Ethiopia may face further power shortages because of low water levels at dams after a poor rainy season, an official said, following two days of sporadic cuts caused by technical faults at hydropower plants.

Unspecified issues at a substation serving Oromia region’s Gibe 1 and 2 plants, which together can produce as much as 604 megawatts, and a shutdown at the 320-megawatt Tana Beles installation in Amhara state, caused the outages on Nov. 28-29, Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy spokesman Bezuneh Tolcha said Monday by phone.

The drought affecting the east of the country that’s left 8.2 million Ethiopians in need of food aid wasn’t related to the outages, though that may change in the coming months unless there’s non-seasonal rainfall, he said.

“There has been a shortage of rain all over country,” he said from the capital, Addis Ababa. “The dams have not collected as much water as they can collect.”

Growth in Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation and largest coffee producer, was 8.7 percent last year and may be 8.1 percent this fiscal year, according to the International Monetary Fund. The drought threatens to crimp economic expansion in a country where 39 percent of output stems from agriculture, about 90 percent of which relies on rain.

Water Shortages

The 300-megawatt capacity Tekeze Hydropower Project in the drought-affected Tigray region is producing only 10 megawatts, Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn was cited as saying in an interview with The Reporter, an Addis Ababa-based newspaper, published on Nov. 28.

Two months after the end of the main rainy season, there are severe water shortages at the country’s oldest dam at Koka on the Awash River, which can generate 42 megawatts, and the 153-megawatt Melka Wakena on the Wabe Shabelle in east Oromia, Hailemariam said.

Over 94 percent of Ethiopia’s electricity was generated by hydropower in the last quarter of the fiscal year that ended July 7, and production increased 3.5 percent to 2,300 gigawatt hours compared with the year before, according to central bank data. The first two turbines from the 1,870-megawatt Gibe III plant have started producing power, Bezuneh said, without giving details.

The construction of Africa’s largest power station, the 6,000-megawatt Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, is scheduled for completion in mid-2017 and it may annually produce as much as 15,860 gigawatt-hours of electricity.

Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam Project

Ethiopia says Consultants fail to reach joint vision on GERD | TVC NEWS

Ethiopia says Consultants fail to reach joint vision on GERD

TVC NEWS [ADDIS ABABA] - Ethiopia’s minister of water and energy Motuma Mekasa on Saturday said the French and Dutch consultants have failed to come up with a common guideline to implement the technical studies for the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

Mekasa, who addressed the opening session of the tripartite national technical committee on GERD in Cairo Saturday, said “we will discuss several options during this meeting”.

The Ethiopian minister further underlined that his government has already embarked on preparing the required technical studies indicating they are not the party responsible for the delay in the preparation of those studies.

The multi-billion dollar dam is being constructed on the Blue Nile, about 20 kilometers from the Sudanese border, and has a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters, and is expected to generate electrical power of up to 6,000 megawatts.

Egypt fears the dam will negatively affect its traditional share of water from the Nile, its only source of water which has been determined by a colonial-era water-sharing treaty.

But Ethiopia insists that this will not occur and asserts that the project is indispensable to its own national development and the economic welfare of its burgeoning population.

The Ethiopian minister provided three other options including to continue working with the French and Dutch consultants after overcoming their differences, to select one consultancy firm to undertake the required technical studies or to choose two other firms from those which were shorted-listed previously.

The three countries had previously formed a committee to select a consultancy firm to assess the impact of GERD on Sudan and Egypt. Four consultancy firms from France, Australia and Netherlands had been short-listed initially and invited to submit their proposals.

Mekasa pointed to the negative impact of poverty on people due to absence of food security and energy, saying “we need equitable use for our available resources in order to meet food and energy needs, eradicate poverty and raise the standard of living”.

He said that the real motive behind building the GERD is to combat poverty and achieve sustainable development by generating clean energy, expressing his government’s commitment to implement the framework agreement signed by the leaders of the three countries.

Mekasa also underscored his country’s readiness to exchange information with the members of the tripartite committee and implement the recommendations and outcome of the technical studies pertaining to the GERD.

Last March, the leaders of Sudan, Ethiopia and Egypt signed in Khartoum a framework cooperation deal on the GERD. The leaders said the “declaration of principles” would pave the way for further diplomatic cooperation on the GERD which has stirred fears of a regional resource conflict.

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Construction of Ethiopian Renaissance dam moving faster than dam talks: Egyptian irrigation minister - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online

Construction of Ethiopian Renaissance dam moving faster than dam talks: Egyptian irrigation minister - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online: "Construction of Ethiopian Renaissance dam moving faster than dam talks: Egyptian irrigation ministerNinth tripartite meeting between Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese officials is taking place in Cairo
Ahram Online , Saturday 7 Nov 2015
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File photo: A general view shows construction activity on the Grand Renaissance dam in Guba Woreda, Benishangul Gumuz region March 16, 2014. Egypt fears the $4.7 billion dam, that the Horn of Africa nation is building on the Nile, will reduce a water supply vital for its 84 million people, who mostly live in the Nile valley and delta. Picture taken March 16, 2014 (Photo: Reuters
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Ethiopia stalls negotiations with Egypt and Sudan over Renaissance Dam
The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is going ahead at a faster pace than the talks on the dam between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan, Egyptian Minister of Irrigation Hossam Moghazi said on Saturday.
"There is an extreme delay in achieving the road map we agreed upon in August 2014, compared to the construction rates of the Grand Renaissance Dam," said Moghazi at the opening session of the ninth tripartite meeting in Cairo.

The irrigation ministers and the tripartite national committee set up to look at the dam are meeting to continue attempts to resolve the conflicts between the foreign consultancy firms conducting studies related to the dam.

In September, Dutch consultancy firm Deltares withdrew from the assessment of the dam, saying that the conditions imposed by the tripartite national committee -- which includes representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as the French consultancy firm BRL -- did not provide sufficient guarantees to Deltares that an independent high-quality study could be carried out.

The future of negotiations has remained unclear after several postponed meetings in October.

According to the irrigation ministry, Egypt is suffering from a water deficit of 20 billion cubic metres, which it compensates for through water recycling, an inadvisable process in the long term.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, now under construction on the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia and scheduled to be completed i"



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Egypt concerned about Renaissance Dam, seeks 'meaningful dialogue' - Politics - Egypt - Ahram Online

takes of the past,’ making the relationship with Nile basin countries a priority for foreign policy

Ahram Online , Monday 2 Nov 2015

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Egypt's irrigation minister Hossam Moghazi (Al-Ahram)

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Egypt has ‘pressure cards’ in Ethiopia Renaissance dam dispute, says minister

Egypt's irrigation minister visits Sudan to talk Ethiopian dam consensus

Ethiopia stalls negotiations with Egypt and Sudan over Renaissance Dam

Egypt shares its citizens' concerns regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) that is expected to affect Egypt's annual share of Nile water, Irrigation Minister Hossam Moghazi said on Monday.

Moghazi said in a press conference on the sidelines of his inspection visit to a group of water projects in Sharqiya governorate that Egypt is exerting effort in order to eliminate such worries on an objective and scientific basis and through 'meaningful dialogue' with other Nile basin countries. 

Moghazi said that Saturday's ninth dam meeting, to be convened in Cairo, would be held to resolve the conflicts between the foreign consultancy firms conducting studies related to the Ethiopian dam.

He said that several pivotal alternatives would be raised in order to resolve the conflict. Only experts from Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan will attend Saturday's meeting in Cairo.

According to Moghazi, a report will then be delivered to the three countries' irrigation ministers.

A meeting will then take place between the three countries’ irrigation ministers, as well as possibly the foreign ministers, in order to reach an agreement.

Moghazi also affirmed that Egypt's share of Nile water is non-negotiable, adding that it will work on increasing the country’s share of Nile water. 

According to Moghazi, there has been a noticeable development in the relationship between Egypt and Nile Basin countries.

He added that Egypt is “rectifying the mistakes of the past,” making the relationship with Nile basin countries a priority for foreign policy.

In September, Dutch consultancy firm Deltares withdrew from the assessment of the dam.

Deltares stated that it had withdrawn from the project because the conditions imposed by the Tripartite National Committee (TNC) -- which includes representatives from Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia, as well as the French consultancy firm BRL -- did not provide sufficient guarantees to Deltares that an independent high-quality study could be carried out.

Since then, the future of the Renaissance Dam negotiations has remained unclear after several postponed meetings in October.

According to the irrigation ministry, Egypt is suffering from a water deficit of 20 billion cubic metres, which it compensates through water recycling, an inadvisable process in the long term.

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, now under construction across the Blue Nile River in Ethiopia and scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic meters of water.