AFP PHOTO
By Joel Gulhane
After the Sudan Tribune revealed allegations of a plot to bomb the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on Tuesday the Egyptian Ministry for Military Production denied the allegations.
The Minister of State for Military Production Reda Hafez has said in a statement to Prime Minister Hesham Qandil that the news is completely false and that the most likely aim of these allegations was to tarnish Egyptian-Ethiopian relations.
The Sudan Tribune reported the allegations last month using the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks as its source. It was alleged that Sudanese president, Omer Al-Bashir had agreed to allow Egypt to build an airbase in Sudan in order to be able to attack the GERD if negotiations failed to result in an agreement.
The issue of Nile Water sharing is one that is being contested by the Nile basin’s upstream countries including Ethiopia, according to the Sudan Tribune.
The GERD, a massive hydroelectric dam, is controversial as it would limit the fresh water flow to Sudan and Egypt. When completed the GERD’s reservoir will hold 65 billion cubic metres of water. On 14 September Bloomberg reported that the IMF asked Ethiopia to slow down the construction of the dam, over concerns about its economy.
