Ethiopia: Abiy Ahmed inaugurates the production of electricity of the great Renaissance dam

Ethiopia officially inaugurated, this Sunday, February 20, 2022, the great Renaissance dam, © Noé Hochet-Bodin / RFI

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Decisive day in Ethiopia.

The country of the Horn of Africa inaugurated, this Sunday, February 20, its great dam on the Nile.

The project, intended to be the biggest on the continent, is at the center of a controversy with the two upstream countries, Egypt and Sudan, who are worried about the future flow of the Nile.

But for the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, this great patriotic project reinforces his image, while the war continues in the north of Ethiopia.

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With our correspondent in Addis Ababa,

Abiy Ahmed insisted on pressing the button himself.

The Ethiopian Prime Minister fired the first turbine of the GERD, the Grand Renaissance Dam, generating the first megawatts of electricity, nearly 11 years after construction began. 

However, the pharaonic construction site is not yet finished.

Only one turbine is running, a second will follow in the short term.

No timetable has been given for the finalization of the project which should have 13 turbines and become the largest dam in Africa.

“ 

 ,” declared Abiy Ahmed accompanied by a large government delegation. 

It must be said that the GERD is vital for the Prime Minister, both to generate electricity to which 60 million Ethiopians do not have access and it also allows him to bring together Ethiopian society, which is currently torn apart by the civil war in the north of the country. 

Abiy Ahmed wanted to reassure his Egyptian and Sudanese neighbors, opposed to the project.

“ 

 ,” he concluded.

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• Ethiopia

• Energies