This April 2, 2013, photo shows the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in Asosa Region, Ethiopia (Photo: AP)The tripartite committee for Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam commenced its meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to discuss the last developments regarding the foreign consultancy firms’ impact statement on the dam, Al-Ahram Arabic news website reported on Thursday afternoon.The agreement between French BRL group and Dutch Deltares consultancy firm stumbled due to divergences of their roles and the competence of each firm in preparing the report on the impact of the dam, informed sources told Ahram Arabic website.
The three countries previously agreed to give 70 percent of the research workload to the French consultancy firm, with the other 30 percent to the Dutch firm.
Due to the delay by the firms finalising the impact statement, the meeting that was supposed to take place on Friday between Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia’s irrigation ministers and representatives from the two firms, has been adjourned.
This is not the first delay to take place due to disagreements between the two consultancies companies.
The two firms failed to meet their previous deadline of 12 August.
The tripartite committee includes representatives and experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan.
In March 2015, Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia signed a declaration of principles on the dam, agreeing to safeguard the interests of all three countries.
According to the irrigation ministry, Egypt is currently suffering from a water deficit of 20 billion cubic meters and compensates it through water recycling, a process that isn’t advisable in the long run.
The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic meters of water.
