GUBA, Ethiopia —
Ethiopia began
generating electricity from its mega-dam on the Blue Nile on Sunday, a
milestone in the controversial multi-billion dollar project.
اضافة اعلان
Prime Minister
Abiy Ahmed, accompanied by
high-ranking officials, toured the power station and pressed a series of
buttons on an electronic screen, a move that officials said initiated
production.
The
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) is set to be the largest hydroelectric scheme in Africa but has been at the
center of a dispute with downstream nations Egypt and Sudan ever since work
first began in 2011.
Abiy described Sunday's development as
"the birth of a new era".
"This is a good news for our continent
& the downstream countries with whom we aspire to work together," he
said on Twitter.
Addis Ababa deems the project essential for
the electrification and development of Africa's second most populous country,
but Cairo and Khartoum fear it could threaten their access to vital Nile
waters.
Abiy dismissed those concerns.
"As you can see this water will
generate energy while flowing as it previously flowed to Sudan and
Egypt,
unlike the rumors that say the Ethiopian people and government are damming the
water to starve Egypt and Sudan," he said as water rushed through the
concrete colossus behind him.
But Cairo denounced Sunday's start-up,
saying Addis Ababa was "persisting in its violations" of a 2015
declaration of principles on the project.
'Resisting external pressure'
The $4.2-billion dam is ultimately
expected to produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity, more than doubling
Ethiopia's current output.
Only one of 13 turbines is currently
operational, with a capacity of 375 megawatts.
A second will come online within a few
months, project manager Kifle Horo told AFP, adding that the dam is currently
expected to be fully completed in 2024.
The 145m high structure straddles the Blue
Nile in the Benishangul-Gumuz region of western Ethiopia, near the border
with Sudan.
Egypt, which depends on the Nile for about
97 percent of its irrigation and drinking water, sees it as an existential
threat.
Sudan hopes the project will regulate annual
flooding, but fears its own dams could be harmed without agreement on the
GERD's operation.
Both have long been pushing for a binding
deal over the filling and operation of the massive dam, but African
Union-sponsored talks have failed to achieve a breakthrough.
William Davison, senior analyst at the
International Crisis Group, said the GERD is seen domestically "as a
symbol of Ethiopia resisting external pressure".
"The government has propagated the idea
that foreign actors are trying to undermine Ethiopia's sovereignty, so I think
this will be cast as showing they are still making progress despite a hostile
environment."
Addisu Lashitew of the Brookings Institution
in Washington described the GERD's commissioning as a "rare positive
development that can unite a deeply fractured country" after 15 months of
brutal conflict with Tigrayan rebels.
"The newly-generated electricity from
the GERD could help revive an economy that has been devastated by the combined
forces of a deadly war, rising fuel prices and the COVID-19 pandemic," he
said.
Project delays
The dam was initiated under former prime
minister Meles Zenawi, the Tigrayan leader who ruled Ethiopia for more than two
decades until his death in 2012.
Civil servants contributed one month's
salary towards the project in the year it launched, and the government has
since issued dam bonds targeting Ethiopians at home and abroad.
Getachew Reda, spokesman for the
Tigray People's Liberation Front that has been at war with government forces since
November 2020, said Abiy was taking credit for a project launched under a
Tigrayan-led government.
"Today
#AbiyAhmed is trying to cash in
on a project that he once publicly downplayed as a meaningless publicity
stunt," he tweeted.
But officials on Sunday credited Abiy with
reviving the dam after delays they claim were caused by mismanagement.
"Our country has lost so much because
the dam was delayed, especially financially," project manager Kifle
said.
The process of filling the vast reservoir
began in 2020, with Ethiopia announcing in July of that year it had hit its target
of 4.9 billion cubic meters.
The reservoir’s total capacity is 74 billion
cubic meters, and the target for 2021 was to add 13.5 billion.
Last July Ethiopia said it had hit that
target, meaning there was enough water to begin producing energy, although some
experts had cast doubt on the claims.
Kifle declined to reveal how much water was
collected last year or what the target is for the coming rainy season.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
