Djibouti = The
Egyptian military satellite will track the construction of an Ethiopian
hydroelectric dam over which officials in Cairo and Addis Ababa have been
locked in a standoff over fears that the project will hinder Egypt’s access to
the Nile’s water.
Egysat will monitor
Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam by capturing high quality photos in Ethiopia
(Dam Site, military movements and others) of the construction site along with
other sources of the Nile, said Alaa El-din El-Nahry, vice president of Egypt’s
National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences.
The LE300 million
satellite – which will come into
operation in mid-June after a two-month test period – will track the dam’s
height, storage capacity and water discharge. It will also monitor the Kongo
River basin to assess the effectiveness of a proposed project to link the Kongo
and Nile rivers.
Egypt’s government
believes the satellite’s findings will bolster its negotiations with Ethiopia
and provide legal ground in case it must resort to international arbitration
over any violations in the dam’s stated purpose of electricity generation,
El-Nahry said during a seminar in Cairo, according to Al-Ahram daily.
Egypt has been
particularly concerned that the dam, now more than 30 percent finished, will
hugely impact its share of the Nile, the country’s main source of potable
water.
Situated near the
Sudanese border on the Blue Nile, a Nile tributary, the hydroelectric dam will
be the biggest in Africa, capable of producing 6,000 megawatts of energy.
Last week, Ethiopian
Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn urged Egypt to return to the tripartite
discussions with Ethiopia and Sudan in an effort to settle the dispute. The
three countries have been engaged in a series of dialogues since the launch of
the project three years ago.
Last year, Ethiopia
and five other Nile-basin countries – Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and
Burundi – endorsed an accord, the Co-operative Framework Agreement, which
replaces a 1929 treaty granting Egypt veto power over any project on the Nile
in upstream countries. Sources: Al-Ahram daily.
Sudan, Egypt’s
immediate downstream country, has backed Ethiopia’s plans to build the dam.
(Read Updated Report: Sudan http://www.geeskaafrika.com
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