Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
By Tesfa-Alem Tekle
March 14, 2011 (ADDIS ABABA) – Ethiopia is set to launch construction of a massive hydroelectric dam in its Nile basin near its border with Sudan, the country’s Prime Minister has announced.
The planned power plant Ethiopia’s Benishangul state will be 40km from the Sudanese border.
“We are planning to carry out a number of important projects, including a major project on the Nile,” Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi told the press.
Upon completion, the power plant will have an electric generation capacity of 6,000MW, three times more than the combined capacity of all Ethiopia’s existing dams.
Expected to take at least five years to complete, the dam is one of three the Horn of Africa nation plans to begin building before mid 2011. Three other power plants, which have been under construction in the past few years, are expected to become functional in 2011.
Last month Fortune, an Ethiopian newspaper, reported that construction on the dam on the Blue Nile has already begun. It also said that it was awarded to Italian multinational Salini Costruttori, the same Italian construction company that built the Gilgel Gibe II and Tana Beles dams.
Almost all Ethiopia’s dams lie either in the Nile River basin or on the Omo River. The Blue Nile, which begins in Ethiopia, meets the White Nile in Sudan’s capital Khartoum.
Both the Blue Nile and Omo River are shared with Ethiopia’s neighbors but do not have international water sharing agreements. However, Ethiopia does participate in the Nile Basin Initiative, a forum for dialogue with the other Nile basin countries.
Sudan and Egypt are the notable absentees from the initiative. Egypt claims that a colonial era agreement giving it the lion’s share of the Nile’s water is still valid.
(ST)
sunny
Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
Buiding a dam needs a country to be permitted by the world with the respect of the “Treaty on a Law of the Sea.
sunny
Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
Dear readers,
During Garang’s death in Khartoum. Nuer took lead in the protest. A nuer young man who was a protestor was shot dead by a dinka police working for the northern government. He threatened the nuer man to put down his panga or he will shot him to death, the nuer man told him that he has no heart to throw away the panga. With this argument, he shot the nuer man to death. Why should you kill your brother while he is reacting because your leader is kill? This scenario proved dinka as most food lovers in southern sudan more than any other tribe.
Wolleyewu
Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
First of all the current psuedo government in Ethiopia which is based on ethinicity has no legitmecy in the eyes of every Ethiopian at home from the very beggining they grapped power but as long as they remain loyal slaves of the Americans and the west they could stay for a short while and say what ever they like till thrown away from the shoulder of the citizens by the inevitable and imminent popular uprising of the nation like the Arab world.
For that matter they donot even have the mandate to build such a huge (impractical in their administration but to use it for political purpose)resource consuming construction and the rest fake and short lived dams like Tana beles and Gilgel Gibe II which are built by Tigrians and their mafia counter parts from Italy (Salini construction).
All these rehitoric about construction (double digit economic development which is ridiculous)by the psuedo government in Ethiopia is a strategy to collect huge sum of money either in Aid or load in the name of poor Ethiopia and it would be diverted to their account in abroad.
That is what TPLF (Woyane) does mean. And that is what the real picture of the Monster (prime) minister Meles zenawi look like but he would like to look as a person with substance while he is null. He is the worest and uneducted evil guy Ethiopia has ever face but claimed to have masters degree in Econonmics, just because he bought his degree from Open university in UK through distance learning. In actual terms he is a drop-out from Addis Ababa University and getting crazy with educational complexity and vanishing Ethiopian schoolars for that reason.
That is why he is killing the current generation and dismantel the country in every aspect.
Death for Tigre(Woyane)
Wolleyewu
Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
You are just knocking like an empty barrel to make confusion onreaders.
You Tigrians ans Eriterians are the sole enemy of Ethiopia on Earth. You can go to hell. We have never had enemies except you people who are naturally single entity but disguised the international community as two in the name of Tigray and Eriteria.
But the good thing is we Ethiopians know you well and we will do what we should and what you desreved starting from eviction from the land of Ethiopia, confiscation of your property gained through plunder and proper justice will be done for the humanity crime you committed on inocent citizens.
Death for Tigre+Eriteria= Tigrians
Neftegna
Ethiopia to build dam on Blue Nile near Sudan border
Mr wannabe Wolloyew
I don’t know who you’re trying to fool here but nobody is buying it. Your hateful rhetoric narrates your sorry existence . Admit it, you’re a sad, broken hobo with no future. Ethiopia Tikdem !!