Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources on Wednesday confirmed that the government will continue to stick to its demands regarding the regulations for filling and operating the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, reported Egypt Today. The statement comes after some reports claimed that Egypt abandoned one of its main conditions.
According to the statement issued by the Ministry of Water Resources, Egypt seeks a minimum annual flow of 40 billion cubic meters of water from the Blue Nile annually, which is the average flow it gets from the river during times of drought as what happened in from 1979 to 1987.
“Ethiopia’s proposal seeks to allow an annual passage of 35 billion cubic meters of water from the Blue Nile only during the periods of filling the dam and the times of drought or extended drought,” the statement read.
Ethiopia started building the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in 2011. The dam is 70 percent complete and is expected to be fully operational by 2022. The GERD is expected to produce over 6,000 megawatts of electricity and become Africa’s largest hydropower dam upon completion.
As far as the dam filing regulations are concerned, Ethiopia wants to fill the reservoir, whose total capacity is 74 billion cubic meters, in five to six years. But, Egypt seeks to prolong the period to avoid the negative effects of water shortage, which is the main point of their talks.
The negotiation talks involving Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan have been fruitless for years. The representatives of the three countries have recently started new rounds of talks with the mediation of the United States and the participation of the World Bank.
The water resources and irrigation ministers from Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia will continue the technical discussions on all unresolved issues concerning the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) project in their next meeting on January 9-10 in Addis Ababa.
