BY WORKU BELACHEW
Most, if not all, Egyptian politicians conceal the hard fact that drought is visiting parts of Ethiopia time and time again. They don’t tell you several thousands of people are suffering in Borena and elsewhere in Ethiopia due to the failure of rain for consecutive seasons.
Their politicians, academicians and the media never talk about the over 65 percent of Ethiopians that are languishing in darkness. Nor do these fellows raise the issue of millions of households that are exposed to respiratory infections and other chronic diseases resulting from the use of biomass fuels as a source of domestic energy
The famous quote goes: “There are lies, dammed lies and statistics,” which leads us to the highest form of Egyptian politicians’ lie pertaining to Ethiopia’s flag-ship clean energy project on the river Abbay. The UN 2023 Water Conference was held on March 22-23 in New York. At the event, Egypt’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hani Sewilam sounded a false alarm to the International Community (IC) based on misleading information.
In the first place, the construction at Guba zone of Benishangul-Gumuz State in Ethiopia is just a hydro-electric dam. The Abbay hydro-electric dam cannot be called an “oversized dam”. The use of such terminology could appear as an insult to the IC’s conscience. The High Aswan Dam (HAD) of course could be termed as a “colossal inefficient” dam that has taken shape in a place where water evaporates immensely. It is obvious that the lake behind AD lose 10BCM to evaporation annually.
Studies on the electric dam
Ethiopia did not simply start the building of the Abbay hydro-electric dam. It had carried out adequate studies on various sorts. The International Panel of Experts (IPoE) that Ethiopia initiated accessed firsthand information related to the studies. The IPoE comprises of two experts from each country and independent experts of environmental, socio-economic, dam engineering as well as water resources and hydrological modeling ones. It also hired a law firm.
The IPoE made four visits to the project site that the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) facilitated. All IPoE members had got equal access to the Abbay hydro- electric dam (GERD) design and study documents as to a report the IPoE released on May 31st 2013. The GoE availed documents in both soft and hard copies and it also dedicated a website so that the experts were able to access data and information, according to the same report.
Ethiopia has been implementing the recommendations of the panel of experts that included environmental protections by planting billions of seedlings in and around Abbay basin within its territory. Over the last five years, under the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed (PhD) initiative, over 25 billion seedlings were transplanted. Ethiopia as well supplied millions of seedlings to countries of Nile basin.
The dam’s safety is a well-guaranteed one. Ethiopia also respects the principle of causing no significant harm to downstream countries. It is an undeniable fact as the dam indeed causes huge significant impacts in terms of benefiting the region in general and downstream Sudan and Egypt in particular. As the hydro-electric dam generates surplus energy, Ethiopia would boost electricity export to its neighbors and even beyond. Currently, neighboring countries including Djibouti and Sudan enjoy a clean energy supply from Ethiopia. The dam’s contribution to a regulated flow of water, reduction of silt and sedimentation, deterring the risk of flooding, and the like are immense benefits to the two downstream countries.
Filling of hydro-electric dam
Abbay hydro-electric dam first and foremost is a flag-ship project. It is the people and government of Ethiopia that is financing the construction and other related activities. As a sovereign state, Ethiopia can do any development undertakings within its territory and without causing significant harm to countries downstream the river. But the reality is—Ethiopia has invited the two downstream countries namely Sudan and Egypt to: participate in the IPoE; sign the Declaration of Principles (DoP), and even it has shared information inviting them to send representatives when it impounds water behind the non-water consuming hydro-electric dam.
The hydro-electric dam is obviously a non-water consuming one. Once the water hits turbines, it flows through its course. There is no capacity so far created to obstruct the flow of a river as big as Abbay in our world. It is naïve to think that Ethiopia would arrest the flow of the Abbay. Whether one likes it or not Abbay continues to flow on its natural course.
Appeal to force
The Minister in his speech left no stone unturned to misinform the conference participants. He raised the issue of irregular migration that may result from losing jobs if the hydro-electric dam reduces waters in times of drought. He did not mention that Ethiopia would release water in case there is extended drought season in the basin. The fact of the matter is, there should be basin-wide drought mitigation efforts. The clean energy projects in Ethiopia rather help contain illegal and irregular migration of youths from the Nile basin countries. Who would miss as thousands of youths of the region lose their precious lives en route to Europe at the Mediterranean Sea and in the hands of brute traffickers?
Water scarcity
Here is one of the tricky issues Egyptian politicians… use to mislead the IC. Egypt has the largest underground water reserve. It has over 500 billion cubic meters of underground water reserve. Egypt Independent on October 19, 2010 published a news story citing Egyptian scientist and director of Boston University’s Center for Space Physics Farouk al-Baz, that Egypt has “underground water resources that could easily serve the country for the next century”. This came at an international symposium on the role of satellite technology in reducing technology gaps, organized that the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences.
Raphael Addisu, who published article in The Ethiopian Herald back in 2020 entitled “Egypt’s Narrative of GERD: A Deception Strategy to Mislead the International Community”, throw light on the fact discussed above He wrote: “According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 2007 NSAS project report, the world’s largest known fossil water aquifer system, the Nubian Sand Aquifer System, is located underground in the eastern end of the Sahara desert and spans the political boundaries of four countries in north-eastern Africa “The Nubian Sand Aquifer System which covers a land area spanning just over two million km2, including north-western Sudan, north-eastern Chad, south-eastern Libya, and most of Egypt has an estimated groundwater reserve of 150,000 billion cubic meters (BCM).”
Egypt can also desalinate seawater. These advantages do not exist in Ethiopia. Most of Ethiopia’s rivers are trans-boundary ones. Ethiopia’s topography itself accelerates water runoff. And Ethiopia’s existing water retention capacity is very insignificant. Most water experts recommend Ethiopia continue increasing its water retention capacity.
Extravagancy of water use
Egypt also grows water-intensive crops such as rice. The irrigation system in most places as well is said to follow traditional ways than modern and water-saving ones. Canals are in poor condition and loss of water is rampant. Besides, water evaporated from the canals is also another issue that should be taken into account.
In his article The Ethiopian Herald published in April 2020, then Water and Energy Minister Seleshi Bekele (now Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ethiopia to the USA) argued: “It [Egypt] uses water inefficiently with the same old technology of flood irrigation Egypt has also [has taken] the Nile waters outside the basin boundary of the Nile including water transfer to Toshka and to the Sinai through “Peace canal”. Egypt continues to use high-water consumptive crops like rice, waste the water in its golf courses.” The facts speak to themselves that Egypt should resort to modern-day technology in its water use considering the natural water use rights of upstream states.
Obstructing basin-wide cooperation
The Nile Basin states have negotiated well over a decade, annulling colonial-era treaties, to put in place a basin-wide framework for fair use of the waters and furnish a sustainable development of the Nile Basin. The Cooperative Framework of Agreement (CFA) is born out of this effort in which Ethiopia played a key role.
The concerns of Egypt have properly been taken. This included annexing the CFA’s article 14(b) on what is called “water security” to be resolved in six months after the Nile River Basin Commission comes to shape. The CFA is now in good shape with the majority, six countries, signed it and four countries green-lighted the document with their respective legislature. Other countries are also said to have been accelerating the process of ratification.
If two more countries follow suit of the former four member states and put an instrument of ratification at the AU, then the new era in the Nile Basin would further get momentum. Way forward Misleading the IC serves no purpose. Ethiopia practically proven that it adheres to African solution to problems facing Africans. Hence, the talks under the auspicious of AU have brought meaningful results so far.
The three countries should continue with the path already in place. Ethiopia even recently expressed desire to the talks. Over and beyond, the issue of Nile is not only a matter to Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, it is an issue of over a dozen countries. Thus, the bringing the CFA to function is the best alternative.
Editor’s Note: The views entertained in this article do not necessarily reflect the stance of The Ethiopian Herald
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 6 APRIL 2023
