Ethiopia and Egypt disagree again on the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Tigrai Online December 14, 2014

The Ethiopian Renaissance Dam 42 percent is completed

Back in August 2014 Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan agreed to do more studies on the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam. A twelve member committee of experts will be formed selected by the three countries to conduct the study. The Tripartite National Committee has met twice so far one in Addis Ababa and the second in Cairo. The third meeting was scheduled to take place in Khartoum the capital city of the Sudan, but it got canceled because of disagreements between Ethiopia and Egypt. "Each country was supposed to come up with its proposals that comprise technical evaluation of the firms, but during a preparatory conference in Cairo on November 4, a disagreement occurred as to the points to be included in the studies," Bizuneh Tolcha a senior official with the Ethiopian Ministry of Water said, declining to give further details.

It seems the talks hit a stumbling block and they are halted for now. There would have been another meeting held in Addis Ababa on December 16, 2014 if the one in December six was held successfully.  The Egyptians are having a hard time swallowing the fact in a couple of years Ethiopia will be producing over ten thousand clean energy from all it hydro electric dams and wind energy. The surplus power will bring hard currency and help Ethiopia get out of poverty. The concept of Ethiopia gaining real power in every aspect is terrifying Egypt and others in the region.

The Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is being built on mighty Nile River at the cost of about 4.8 billion dollars. The mega project is 42% completed so far and construction work is going 24 hours seven days a week. Last week the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation said the GERD as the project is know in short will produce 700MW of power in 2015.