Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam construction reaches a milestone

Ethiopian News, Tigrai Online, November 17, 2015

The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam reaches a milestone. On May 28, 2013 Ethiopia started diverting the mighty Nile River to began construction of the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa and one of the biggest one in the world, Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

After about two and half years intense 24 hour construction, 48 percent of the dam is completed. In about two months time the Nile River will be diverted to its natural path and to the main part of the dam.

Once the dam starts filling with water, two out of the sixteen turbines, number 9 and 10 will start producing electric power in the early 2016.

Dr. Debretsion Gebremichael one of the three deputy prime ministers of Ethiopia has visited the mega project construction site and said the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam – GERD has reached in a decisive point.

So far Ethiopia has spent 48 billion Ethiopian Birr or roughly about 2.3 billion USD on the project. The construction of the GERD will be completed in 2017.

The $4.7 billion hydroelectric dam is part of more than $12 billion Ethiopia long-term investment to harness the rivers the flow from the heart of Ethiopia. Ethiopia with 92 million people and the fastest growing economy in the world is planning to become a middle income country in the near future. The 12 billion power generation plan will put Ethiopia in a strong position economically and militarily in the east African region.

Some 85% of the Nile River waters come from the northern Highlands of Ethiopia. Egypt which contributes 0% water to the Nile used to monopolize the use of Nile waters. After the EPRDF came to power the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi directly challenged Egypt’s claim to the Nile waters.

Egypt tried multi faceted campaign to stop the construction of the Ethiopian Mega dam including using military threats, but Ethiopia did not flinch. Despite the Egyptians trying every trick including pouring millions of dollars to terrorist groups in Eritrea to sabotage and stop GERD project, the failed miserably and the historical dam is nearing complition.

The Eritrean president when he was trying to denigrate the GERED in an interview in 2013, he made the folloing statment "I don’t see what all this Millennium Dam, Millennium Dam, Millennium Dam is all about? Every time I hear the word Millennium Dam in every TV program and every news media, it makes me feel nauseous .”

The Ethiopian government called the GERD “Project X” when it was in the conceptual stage.

Once completed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will the largest hydroelectric dam in Africa and the number eleven in the world. It will produce 6000 Megawatt of electric power which will be used for domestic consumption and some of it sold for hard currency.

Our fourth fathers built Yeha, Axum, Lalibela, and Gonder with tools and technology available to them at that time and made our country glorious. We are proud of our history, but it is about time to create our own history now. This time we will be making history not only building our economy for our people but we will be utilizing the 21 first century technology to where no Ethiopian has gone before. Ethiopia defiantly is on its way to claim its past glory and more.

There is no doubt Ethiopia will not be the same after the successful completion of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.