Video .. Sisi: filling the reservoir of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will not affect Egypt .. And population increase responsibility

Mohamed Seif Eldin-Cairo

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said that "the process of filling the reservoir of the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam will not affect Egypt as it is rumored," pointing out that the volume of water that reaches Egypt annually in constant light of a significant increase in the population.

"Egypt has spent about LE200 billion over the past five years, and is expected to reach LE900 billion by 2037 to maximize water resources through Establishment of seawater desalination plants in coastal cities.

Sisi stressed that Egypt, by international standards, has entered a stage or level of water poverty, pointing out that he had contacted Ethiopian Prime Minister Abe Ahmed to meet in the Russian capital Moscow during the coming period to solve the problems facing the agreement on the rules of filling the Renaissance Dam.

He added, "I follow during the last period the comments of social networking sites on the issue of the Renaissance Dam, and we are very exaggerated in the subject .. The issues are not resolved in this way .. but dialogue and calm, and we have different scenarios on the Renaissance Dam."

The Egyptian president hinted that the situation in Egypt following the January 25, 2011 revolution caused Ethiopia to unilaterally decide to start building the Renaissance Dam in the absence of the Egyptian state.

The Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources announced - after a meeting of the ministers of water resources of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on October 5 this year - that the negotiations of the Renaissance Dam reached a dead end due to the hardening of the Ethiopian side.

Later, Sisi commented on the outcome of the negotiations through a tweet on Twitter, stressing that "his country with all its institutions is committed to protecting Egyptian water rights in the Nile waters."

Egypt is expected to be deprived of 15 billion cubic meters a year of its share of the Nile water once Ethiopia completes filling the dam of the Renaissance Dam (74 billion cubic meters) over five years.

Egypt's share of the Nile River's water is 55 billion cubic meters annually, and the river provides about 90% of the country's water needs, while the rest comes from groundwater, rain and desalination.

In early September, Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Dr. Mohamed Abdel-Ati explained that "in return for Egypt's shortage of 1% of the Nile water, about 100,000 feddans would be lost" (4,000 feddans).

According to previous government estimates, the water stress rate in Egypt reached 140%, which means that the share of the Egyptian citizen of the Nile water decreased to about 600 cubic meters annually from 2500 cubic meters, and the rate of 600 is less than 40% of the water poverty line set by the United Nations at 1000 cubic meters per capita per year.