Arab Parliament supports Egypt, Sudan in issue of Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam

CAIRO – 11 April 2021: Speaker of the Arab Parliament Adel Al Assoumy voiced his total rejection to Ethiopia’s intransigence in the file of the controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), announcing the parliament’s support for Egypt and Sudan’s water rights.

 

In his comments on the sideline of the permanent meetings of the parliament on Saturday, he called upon Ethiopia to listen to other parties in this file in light of achieving the African interests.

 

Rounds of negotiations among the three countries on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have reached a deadlock several times with Egypt blaming the failure on Ethiopia’s intransigence.

 

Egypt and Sudan insist that a legally binding agreement on the filling and operation of the dam should be reached before Ethiopia implements the second phase of dam filling.

 

Ethiopia, on the other hand, reiterated that it would complete filling the dam in July whether an agreement is reached or not.

 

On Saturday, Egypt rejects an Ethiopian invitation for Egypt and Sudan to nominate operators for data exchange before the second filling of the grand dam, which Ethiopia intends to implement in July despite the absence of consensus among the three countries.

 

Egyptian Water Resources Ministry spokesperson Mohamed Ghanem said the Ethiopian proposal came in a letter by Ethiopia’s water minister Seleshi Bekele, which included “many inaccuracies and claims that do not reflect the path of negotiations over the past years.”

 

On April 7, 2021, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi urged Ethiopia to cooperate with Egypt on the water file, saying “all options are open” in the event of any harm to a single water drop.

 

“I tell our Ethiopian brothers: we should not reach the level that you mess with a water drop in Egypt, because all options are open,” Sisi said while inaugurating the secured and smart documents complex.

 

Since May 2011, Cairo has voiced its concern over how the dam can reduce the country’s annual shares of 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water. Egypt’s average water per-capita is expected to drop from 663 cubic meters per year to 582 cubic meters by 2025, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in 2014.

 

Constructions in the Grand Renaissance Dam started on April 2, 2011 at a cost of $4.8 billion. It was built by the Italian construction and engineering company Salini Impergilo. The Italian company is headquartered in Milan. The dam is located on the Nile with a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters, and is expected to generate up to 6,000 megawatts of power.