New Nile treaty sails past Egypt, Sudan snags

Failure by Egypt and Sudan to come up with a common stand during the Nile Council of Ministers’ assembly in Kinshasa, DR Congo, frustrated their attempts to block a new pact to govern the use of River Nile waters.

To the disappointment of the two downstream countries, the pact was adopted and will soon be signed and ratified by Nile Basin governments.

But the controversial article on water security that the two countries had issues with, will be presented as an annex to the adopted pact pending its resolution.

This paves the way for establishment of a permanent River-Basin Commission to implement development projects.

Preparation and commencement of these investments cost more than $1.2 billion, which will be funded by donors. Currently, the governments work under a temporary organisation which has no legal status in most of the countries, dubbed the Nile Basin Initiative.

The EastAfrican has learnt that before the meeting, Egypt and Sudan wrote a protest note to convener Jose Endundo, who is the chairman of the Nile Council of Ministers (Nile Com), and also DRC’s Minister for Environment, Nature Conservation and Tourism, saying they would boycott the meeting and would urge other countries to do the same.

They said some issues that the meeting was called to resolve, particularly recognition of current uses and rights of River Nile, had been referred to the Nile Basin heads of state. Reversing this resolution was out of order, they said.

Sources said Egypt may have wanted to preside over the critical discussion when it takes over chairmanship of Nile Com from DR Congo next month.

Egypt and Sudan had asked for “historical rights and uses” of the river to be recognised through placement of an article in the new pact.

But other Nile Basin countries — Burundi, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda — had not agreed on this. The meeting went on as scheduled, but Sudan almost stopped it prematurely when it left a few minutes into the negotiations, saying its minister had other commitments back home.

The decision to continue meeting without Sudan left Egypt in a weak position.

Sources said the delegation from Egypt had just one option — to request that controversial articles be presented as an annex to the agreement, but to adopt the blueprint.

“I was not going to come here but when I found out that everyone else would come, I decided to do so, too,” said Mohamed Nasr Allam, Egypt’s newly appointed Minister for Water Resources and Irrigation.

The Egyptians appeared disappointed, pacing back and forth in the corridors of the Grand Hotel, where the meeting was held. This was after it was announced that the treaty had been adopted, and was on its way to the various governments for signing and ratification.

“We still want historical uses of Nile waters to be recognised by other Nile Basin countries. This is the only source of water we have, although we also recognise the need for others to use the water. We want historical rights to be recognised in the agreement before it is signed,” said Egypt’s Nasr Allam.