No one can touch Egypt’s share of Nile water: Sisi on GERD

CAIRO – 18 November 2017: Egypt’s share of Nile water is "a matter of life or death for the nation," President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said on Saturday, commenting on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

In the inauguration ceremony of the Middle East's largest fish farm in Kafr El-Sheikh, Sisi stated that, “No one can touch Egypt’s share of [Nile] water.”

Sisi added that he understands Ethiopian developmental goals behind GERD, but this case is a "matter of life and death" for Egypt.

Construction on the dam started on April 2, 2011 at a cost of $4.8 billion. It was built by Italian construction and engineering company Salini Impergilo. The Italian company is headquartered in Milan.

The dam is located on the Blue Nile with a capacity of 74 billion cubic meters and is expected to generate up to 6,000 megawatts of power.

Since May 2011, Cairo has voiced its concern over how the dam can reduce the country’s annual shares of more than 56 billion cubic meters of Nile water. Egypt’s average water per capita is expected to drop from 663 cubic meters per year to 582 cubic meters by 2025, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) in 2014. Addis Ababa, however, claimed that the dam is necessary for its development and will not harm downstream countries.

Meanwhile, President Sisi signed a tripartite joint cooperation agreement in Khartoum on March 23, 2015 between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia. In December 2015, Sisi addressed the public, saying that there is no reason to worry about the dam and that the matter would be resolved. The three countries held 14 rounds of consultation on resolving the disputes over the Renaissance Dam. However, these rounds failed to solve the dispute.

Former Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hossam el-Moughazi stated in November 2015 that the dam’s construction is going faster than the tripartite talks. On October 1, The Telegraph reported that Ethiopia is finalizing the construction of the dam and then will start filling its reservoir.