CAIRO - Egyptian water experts and strategists disagree over reports warning that water projects in African countries will reduce Egypt's quota of Nile water by 15 billion cubic metres. Egyptians first heard about this when Burundi became the sixth country to sign an agreement allegedly entitling the Nile member states (in the absence of Egypt and Sudan) to unilaterally redistribute the water. Burundi was preceded by Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya. Ethiopia, one of the 10 Nile Basin states, will be the first country to implement the agreement, as the Ethiopian Government will soon launch a water-intensive energy and agricultural project. Since signing the Nile water distribution agreement of 1929, Egypt, with its 85 million citizens, has been receiving 55.5 billion cubic metres of Nile water (accounting for about 95 per cent of the nation's water) annually. The former Government of Ahmed Nazif has been accused of foolishly playing down the fact that African countries changed their minds about the 1929's agreement and wanted to reduce Egypt's quota. But Al-Wafd opposition party's shadow minister of water resources, Ahmed Abdel-Khaleq, has defused the growing anxiety in Egypt by warning that Basin countries, which build dams on the Nile's two main tributaries could suffer violent floods. “Constructing dams on these tributaries will also destroy the surrounding agricultural land. This is because these dams will be unable to safely contain huge amounts of water,” he explains. Also implying that African Nile Basin countries are poor, Abdel-Khaleq noted that these countries cannot afford new water projects anyway. “Such projects are very expensive,” he says, adding that the alarm over water projects on the Nile springs from Israel's hostile attitude towards Egypt. Israel's cynicism and hostility to Egypt reflects Tel Aviv's incessant manoeuvres to obtain Nile water. “Israeli's repeated requests have been ignored, so now Israel is retaliating by provoking African countries against Egypt and its people.” Egypt could face a serious economic, social and humanitarian crisis if the six countries do reduce its quota. Professor of Land and Waters in the Remote-sensing Authority Abbas Zaghloul has warned of this, but he also suggests ways to deal with the crisis. “The Government should reconsider the huge amounts of water being wasted on golf courses. Rationalisation of our water consumption is the first step to mitigate the threat. It takes the same amount of water to irrigate an acre of a golf course, as it does to irrigate 10 acres of agricultural land,” he explains. Prof. Zaghloul also says that people waste vast amounts of water in washing their cars and the streets and in maintaining private swimming pools. “We need a strategy for rationalising water consumption nationwide,” he adds, arguing that Egypt's new diplomacy should increase its influential role, politically and economically, in the African continent. He regrets that the country's diplomacy under Mubarak adopted a superior attitude to other African countries.
