Ethiopia rejected the Egyptian official request to increase the number of gates in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) from two gates to four, to ensure the flow of water to Egypt and Sudan, Youm7 reported Saturday. Ato Bizuneh Tolcha, the Public Relations Director at the Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electricity, stressed that Addis Ababa has conducted extensive studies on the project before starting it and will not re-design the dam to increase the gates. He said that his country told the representatives of both Egypt and Sudan that the current gates of the dam will allow enough water to the downstream countries, during the last round of talks that took place in Khartoum on 27 and 28 December. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, that is scheduled to be completed in 2017, will be Africa's largest hydroelectric power plant with a storage capacity of 74 billion cubic metres of water. Egypt has repeatedly expressed concerns that filling and operating the dam on the Blue Nile will negatively affect its water supply. However, Ethiopia has consistently rejected the claims.
