Ugandan MPs urge govt. to harmonize position in Nile Basin talks

KAMPALA, Mar 11, 2004 (Xinhua) — Uganda’s MPs on the Natural Resources Committee want the government to form a harmonized position on the Nile Basin treaties, to ably join other countries in agitating for a better legal framework with Egypt.

Ten African countries are currently meeting in Entebbe, some 40 km south of Kampala, for talks aiming at changing the legal and institutional framework currently governing the use of Nile River waters.

The MPs were quoted Thursday by The New Vision newspaper as saying that Uganda stood to lose out in the talks if its technocrats from the different ministries presented conflicting views.

Drawing up their final report on the Amon Muzoora motion on the pre-independence treaties at the parliament on Wednesday, the MPs wondered why they were left out of the initiative talks.

“Engineers in the water and hydrology department are not with us. They presented their fears when they came here and did not suggest a way out. We cannot continue like this,” said vice chairperson of the committee Loyce Bwambale.

They said Egypt was clinging to the 1929 and 1959 treaties that restrict other river users from undertaking projects that reduce the volume of water flowing to Egypt.

The MPs said Uganda should have emulated Tanzanian ex-president Julius Nyerere’s decision that the treaties were null and void.

Experts from the 10 African countries of the Nile Basin are meeting in Entebbe to work out how nations can share the benefits of the water resource.

The 10 countries are Burundi, The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, the Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.