Tanzania says it does not recognize 1929 Egypt-UK Nile basin treaty
By Tanzanian newspaper The Guardian
DAR ES SALAAM, Feb 14, 2004 — Tanzania does not recognize the Nile Basin Treaty that restricts East African countries from using Lake Victoria waters without permission from Egypt.
The minister for water and livestock development, Edward Lowassa, told the National Assembly in Dodoma yesterday that the position of the government was stated by the country’s founder President Julius Nyerere to the UN in 1962 and had not changed since then. “That is the official position of the government on the treaty,” the minister said, adding however that Nile basin member countries have been negotiating on the use of the waters of Africa’s biggest lake.
Tanzania begins a grand project to draw water from Lake Victoria to Kahama and Shinyanga towns next month. The project, expected to cost 85.1bn shillings from the country’s own coffers, is said to contravene the treaty signed in 1929 by Britain on behalf of its colonies in East Africa on one hand and Egypt and Sudan on the other.
Britain pledged on behalf of its colonies then not to undertake works that would reduce the volume of Nile waters reaching Egypt. Lake Victoria is one of the sources of the world’s longest river, Nile. The 6,695-km-river stretches from its source at the lake in Uganda to the Nile delta where it joins the Mediterranean Sea. The 1929 Nile Basin Treaty regulates Nile water usage among the 10 riparian states that share the river’s watershed. Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Congo all have an interest in the waters.
The minister, however, said the water to be drawn under the project would be used for human beings and livestock and would only be 1,250 litres per second, an amount not expected to affect interests of other users of the lake. A Chinese firm, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), will undertake the construction work of the first phase of the project expected to begin next month.
According to ministry officials, water from the lake will be tapped from Ihelele Village, in Misungwi District, in Mwanza Region and transported to water tanks to be built at Mabale hills about 9 kilometres from the source. Water pipes will be laid from the tanks to Kahama and Shinyanga in the second phase of the project.
The water project will initially benefit 420,000 people, but this number is expected to soar to 940,000 in the next 20 years. Apart from Shinyanga and Kahama towns, some 54 villages situated along the pipeline would benefit from the project, said the minister.