BY SOLOMON WASSIHUN
Having endured weeks of continuously distressing news of massacres, bloodshed, horror, terrors and tears, Ethiopians are finally starting to smile. Near the end of last month, they celebrated the astounding heroic victories of their sons and daughters in the arena of world athletics. And now this month they are celebrating yet another big exhilarating news of the year that upgrades their happy mood from smile to laughter and jump for joy. – the commencement of power generation by the second turbine of GERD.
Like the first turbine, which began running last February, the news of the start of the second turbine came as a complete surprise and received with great joy by Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia. The second one, the latest, is a bit more surprising because it came months earlier than expected. Even the Egyptians who are remotely monitoring every activity of the GERD must have been taken by surprise. Surely, they never suspected the second turbine will be up and running so early. The first turbine started running almost 7 months after the completion of the second filling of the dam. Interestingly enough, the news of the second turbine came a few weeks after reports about Egyptians’ filing a letter of complaint to The UN falsely accusing Ethiopia.
It is time for the Egyptians to concede to the fact that Ethiopia has a mega dam called GERD, and that reality is irreversible. Now, the GERD is more than 88% complete. That fact has proved wrong the much talked about the doomsday scenario, warning an imaginary danger to the downstream countries, if Ethiopia goes ahead with building the dam. Now, even Some Egyptian analysts themselves have admitted to the fact that the currently Aswan high dam was full to its rim, and even releasing water from the dam reservoir to the desert. This proves Ethiopia’s argument that the existence and operations of GERD would not be causing any water shortages reaching the downstream countries.
Unlike the past 10 years, this time GERD is not just a dam under construction, it has become a working dam with two active turbines generating 750 Megawatt of power to supply the energy-starved Ethiopian economy. In two years, GERD would make Ethiopia the powerhouse of East Africa with the surplus of electricity to be offered to the neighboring countries, which would earn the nation a yearly income of 1 billion US dollars. This means a lot in terms of transforming the nation. There are more points that explain why GERD would be the game changer in the socioeconomic situation of the nation.
65 million Ethiopians 70% percent of which are below age 30 will have the opportunity to access electricity. This means women need not undergo the painstaking and hazardous struggle to use wood as cooking fuel. The majority of Ethiopian students would be able to access light for studying at night, and rural clinics and schools will provide better quality social services to their community. Unemployed youth would be enabled to start a small business to make themselves useful to their community. The agriculture sector the main area of occupation of Ethiopians would have a chance to be mechanized and expand to the agro-industry.
Furthermore, GERD could certainly push Ethiopia toward the center of the investment map of the world, as it solves the primary complaint of foreign investors in Ethiopia, – scarcity of power. Thus, machines in the manufacturing industries would drastically reduce their downtime as there will be a reliable continuous supply of power, which means great productivity and profitability for the manufacturing industries. A world bank report published a few years ago titled “overcoming constraints in the manufacturing sector” states the shortage of power supply is one of the bottlenecks to the progress of the country’s economy.
“Ethiopia’s goal is to transform the country into an industrialized economy and increase the per capita income of its citizens to middle-income levels. Although great progress has been achieved the country must make changes to its burdensome tax, trade, and financing rules and improve basic services such as electricity to support local business and attract new investment,” says the report.
The other aspect of the game-changing transformation the GERD brings is the fast-developing green movements across the nation focusing on the prevention of environmental degradation. Ethiopians are developing a growing interest in environmental protection activities, the prevention of soil erosion, and forest depletion. The green legacy initiative initiated by the Ethiopian Premier has mobilized the nation to cover the open hills and plains and valleys vulnerable to erosion with a green blanket by planting billions of trees every year. The growing environmental awareness of the society coupled with the reduction of deforestation as a result of switching from firewood to electricity as an energy source would have a huge impact on improving the nation’s forest coverage, and thus in turn would help alleviate the deteriorating climate condition.
The GERD’s game-changing aspect has also political dimensions. It is a groundbreaking undertaking that ushered in a new era where the Nile riparian states exercise their rights to the equitable share of the Nile water. The politicization of GERD by Egypt and Sudan has backfired against them exposing to the world the unjust and illogical nature of the Nile treaties signed in the colonial period, to which the two counties still cling on. GERD has made obsolete the hegemonic superiority and full ownership sentiment of the Egyptians over the Nile and called for a negotiated new equation for equitable utilization of the Nile among the riparians. The Ethiopian Foreign Minister and Deputy Premier has said “GERD is the project that Ethiopia used to assert that the old colonial treaties on the Nile are null and void.”
The Egyptians and those western analysts lobbying for them have deliberately misrepresented Ethiopia’s argument for justice in the utilization of water. They wrongly interpret Ethiopia’s attempt to use Abbay by building GERD as a politically motivated action that aims to control the flow of the river to downstream counties, which is far from the truth. Ethiopians always maintain their unwavering stance to peacefully coexist with other riparian states by equitably sharing the bounties of the Nile.
Here is what the Premier said at the inauguration of the start second turbine: “the present generation of Ethiopians is both lucky and victorious. Our forebears were dreaming and planning to build this dam and use this water. At last, this generation has been able to see the realization of the dream of the past generation. I congratulate you all.”
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 18 AUGUST 2022
