Egypt asks Ethiopia to fill Renaissance Dam within 7 years

Ethiopia’s Minister of Water, Irrigation and Energy, Seleshi Bekele, has said that Egypt officially requested that the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) be filled within seven years.

Bekele said that this issue, along with several others, will be discussed in a meeting between Egyptian and Sudanese officials slated to take place next month.

He also said that his Egyptian counterpart, Mohammed Abdel-Ati, recently passed to Ethiopia a study regarding the issue of filling the dam.

“The study requests that the dam should be filled in seven years,” he said, noting that his country replied to Egypt’s study but giving no further details.

Bekele said that the dam would start producing electricity after 15 months and work would be officially completed by 2023.

Egypt fears that the dam will reduce the amount of water reaching it through the Nile, which begins from Abyssinian or Ethiopian Plateau.

Read: Egypt hands Ethiopia its vision of Renaissance Dam