Egyptian President Welcomed By Power Cut In Ethiopia

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Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi attends the Egyptian-Ethiopian relations and common interests bilateral meeting at the National Palace in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, March 24, 2015. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is in Ethiopia for a two-day official visit. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi

Ethiopia’s power shortage routinely shuts the lights off, but the recent spike in outages in Addis Ababa just happened to coincide with a crucial visit by Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi.

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi attends the Egyptian-Ethiopian relations and common interests bilateral meeting at the National Palace in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, March 24, 2015. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is in Ethiopia for a two-day official visit. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi attends the Egyptian-Ethiopian relations and common interests bilateral meeting at the National Palace in Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, March 24, 2015. Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is in Ethiopia for a two-day official visit. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)

The blackouts drew smiles from observers, since they underscored the East African country’s desperate need for electricity from the Grand Renaissance Dam project on its border with Sudan. This has long been a source of tensions as neighbours like Egypt fear for their water supply.

“Ethiopia will never ask the consent of any country to undertake development projects,” Ethiopian Minister of Water, Energy and Irrigation Alemayehu Tegenu said in a recent assertion of his country’s independence.

But with hopes riding on a trilateral state agreement on the issue signed last week, Tegenu added a pledge that Ethiopia will go about its work “in a way that does not cause any significant harm to any country.”

Due for inauguration in late 2017 and costing some 3.5 billion US dollars, the giant dam will tower over the upper reaches of the Blue Nile tributary in northwest Ethiopia.

Once the connected hydropower plants are up and running, the facility will generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity – equivalent to five nuclear power plants. This means economically rising Ethiopia can meet its current needs and also become one of the region’s major exporters of electricity.

Customers could include Kenya, Uganda, Sudan and Egypt. On March 23, Ethiopia signed a basic agreement with last two countries, which both lie on the Nile, hopefully settling the long-standing row over rights to the river’s water.

Tensions even escalated to the point where Cairo in 2013 seemed ready to use military action to secure its supply, when the dam construction foresaw the diversion of the Blue Nile for a few hundred metres.

Located at the end of the Nile, where the 6,850-kilometre-long river empties into the Mediterranean, Egypt understandably fears for its main water source. The Egyptians created a huge reservoir in 1971 with the construction of the Aswan Dam, and if Ethiopia does the same, Cairo expects to see reduced inflow.

It’s an issue that can easily flare up on the back of Egypt’s political upheavals. Since the overthrow of long-time ruler Hosny Mubarak in early 2011, it has been in a state of constant turmoil. Both the Islamist ex-president Mohammed Morsi and the new head of state, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, have used the conflict with Ethiopia for foreign policy propaganda purposes.

While Morsi is said to have mulled sabotage of the dam, the Al-Sissi government last year began lobbying for Africa-wide support against Ethiopia in the matter. Negotiations of the Nile states were suspended until an Egyptian delegation first visited the dam site in autumn 2014. On March 23, 2015, Al-Sissi attended the signing of the new cooperation agreement with Ethiopia.

At his meeting with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Al-Sissi proclaimed the past “coolness” between the countries to be history. The agreement was a “strong foundation” and is a “landmark to build on for a brighter future,” Al-Sissi said.

But this does not necessarily mean an end to the dispute, since details of the three-nation deal including Sudan still have to be worked out. The beaming faces of Al-Sissi, Desalegn and Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir after the signing could not hide the fact that the Blue Nile will long be the focus of discussion.

Originating in Lake Tana in the Ethiopian highlands, the Blue Nile contributes 85 percent of the water to the entire river, unlike the White Nile, which originates in Lake Victoria and carries far less. Hence Addis Ababa’s insistence on its primary right to use the river.

Former Ethiopian government adviser Tecola Hagos said it best: “The course of the future history of both Egypt and Ethiopia … is going to be written with Blue Nile water as ink.”

GNA

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