Ethiopia on Thursday announced the construction work of the mega-controversial Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is 90 percent completed, reported The East African.
The announcement was made by the office of national coordination for the construction of the dam during an event organized to mark 12 years since the foundation stone of the dam was laid.
The announcement comes only a few days after Egypt issued a fresh warning against Ethiopia over the multi-billion-dollar massive dam project. The GERD will be Africa’s largest dam once it gets completed.
Egypt’s government said that all options are open to deal with any threats to its water supply posed by the mega-dam.
“We just declare all options open without defining specific procedures, and this serves the Egyptian interest in retaining all available alternatives.” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry had warned.
He said that Egypt takes disciplined steps towards Ethiopian rigorousness regarding the dam.
In response to Egypt’s warning, the Ethiopian government dismissed Egyptian Foreign Minister Shoukry’s remarks as irresponsible.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Sudanese Finance Minister Gibril Ibrahim said the power to be generated from GERD will not only be enough for the neighboring countries but also contribute to the development of the entire region.
During an interview with the Ethiopian News Agency (ENA), the minister noted that one cannot even think of economic development without power.
“We think the new dam is going to help us [Sudan] have enough cheap energy from Ethiopia,” he said.
Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt have been holding several rounds of talks for about a decade over the dam after Addis Ababa started working on the dam in 2011.
Notably, both Egypt and Sudan are concerned that the GERD might affect their share of the water resources. Ethiopia expects to generate more than 6,000 megawatts of electricity from the mega-dam.
