Egypt is grappling with reality of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Ethiopian News, Tigrai Online, January 11, 2016

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is about 55% completed. The level of completion is different in different sections of the dam. For example the physical dam itself might be completed more than the above figure, but the overall completion includes like resettlement of the people from the dam site, things that are related to security, tourism, irrigation, transportation, and many other aspects of the project that are not directly connected to the electric producing dam may be in different stages of completion. The main point is the dam construction is on time and it is on budget. The construction continues 24/7 365 days a year none stop.

The more the GERED comes closer to completion the more the Egyptians start to act in a bizarre way. At the end of December Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan signed a deal on which international firms should carry out the study if GERD will impact Egypt and Sudan. There have been agreements of this sort before but they ended up not working because Ethiopia and Egypt could not agree on the details. This time the three countries chose two French firms to do the technical studies. The study will start on February and it will take from six to 15 months.

By the end of the technical studies are completed and presented to the countries the GERED will be completed so it is basically meaningless. Meanwhile some Egyptian politicians, intellectuals, and media are spewing false propaganda about the Ethiopian mega project.

This week Egypt requested Ethiopia should increase the number of sluices (sliding gates) from two to four or six. Ethiopia immediately rejected the idea saying the two sluices which are completed are more than enough. Now consider this request for a second, when the dam is 55% completed asking Ethiopia to demolish or tinker with what has been built and start over is not unpractical, it is a joke.

The Egyptians are struggling with the reality that Ethiopia the rightful owner of the river Nile in its territories is about to complete the largest hydro eclectic dam in Africa. For too long the Egyptians were fooling themselves that the water of the Nile river belonged only to Egypt, although Egypt does not contribute a single drop of water to the river while 86% of the Nile waters come from Ethiopia.

They still talk about no one should touch Egypt’s share of the Nile waters which is about 90% of the total amount, the other ten is for Sudan, and the rest of Nile countries including Ethiopia get 0%.

The share they keep mentioning repeatedly is what the British forced them to sign when they were colonizing Egypt and Sudan. The reason the British did the singing was not to help the Egyptians, but to produce more cotton in Egypt and Sudan which were the only suppliers cotton for the British textile factories. The British don’t care if the Egyptians are wiped out from thirst they just needed their cotton produced in a slave labor and in somebody’s land.

Ethiopia never signed any treaty about the Nile waters with anyone including Egypt so if the Egyptians signed any treaty with Sudan and the British it is not Ethiopia’s business.

Professor of Water Resources at the Faculty of Agriculture at Cairo University, Nader Nour El-Din, is quoted saying, “The Egyptian ministry should obligate Ethiopia to sign the agreement it refused to sign previously, ensuring that the dam will not negatively affect Egypt. Egypt should also force Ethiopia to offer guarantees on Egypt’ water share, to ensure that it will not face drought during the building of the dam or encounter any technical problems.” Unbelievable

These people live in fantasy world of LaLa land. Egypt does not have the means and the strength to force Ethiopia to do anything.

We would advice the Egyptians not to listen to Professor Alemayhu Gebremariam who said,last week ”...if the Dam should be completed and become operational, I do not believe El-Sisi will wait for any adverse economic effect to occur in Egypt before taking action. I believe he will go after the Dam with everything he has got within days of the completion of the project in a lightning strike. I have no doubts about that!”

Egypt has been employing multifaceted strategy to stop the GERD from completion, but so far all of them fail miserably. Egypt is running out of viable options to stop the construction of the GERD. The latest unrest in some towns in Ethiopia is an attempt by the Egyptians and their dog Isaias to destruct Ethiopia, but it deflated without much damage.

The only thing left for Egypt is to find peaceful solution that will benefit both people. If it rejects this, Egypt has to face the consequences of its own doing.