Reports Leo Odera Omolo.
Information emerging out of the Tanzanian capital city, Dar Es Salaam says that country is headed for another diplomatic row with the two northern African states of Egypt and the Sudan over the decision to draw water for domestic use from Lake Victoria.
This will be the second project using Lake Victoria water, which will be drawn for domestic use in Tabora Region, 278 kilometers south of the lake.
Designs for the project are to be drawn up this coming July with the implementation slated fir January 2013 and completion in December 2014.
The first project, in 2004, was implemented in two phases under which Lake Victoria water was pumped overland to benefit residents of Kahama and Shinyanga towns, about 176 kilometers to the south of the lake.
The USD 85.1 million project will serve a population of 420,000.It is reportedly raising concern in Egypt and Sudan, the main interested parties in the River Nile, of which Lake Victoria is a major source.
The influential EASTAFRICAN weekly, this week quoted the press attaché in the Egyptian embassy in Dar Es Salaam, Mr Ahmed Abdul Fatah, as saying the Egyptians have not been informed about the current project.
The two Nile Basin treaties signed during the British Colonial era in 1929 and in 1959 between Britain and the Egyptian governments restricted the carrying out of any project on the Nile River tributaries or their lakes that would adversely affect its water level without Cairo’s consent
And in order to make sure that the agreement is applied to the letter, Egypt has posted a team of military water engineers who are permanently station in Jinja Town, which is the source o the River Nile, a Ugandan City, Uganda’s second largest city, which is located about 90 kilometer to the east of the capital, Kampala.
The same Egyptian government has posted its water experts attached to its embassies in Nairobi, Kampala and Dar Es Salaam whose main responsibilities including the monitoring of Nile River water level on daily basis.
However, the Draft Agreement over the Nile River Basin Co-operative Framework, Section 15, all the countries except Egypt and the Sudan, take the position that the treaties in question are illegal, arguing that they were negotiated and signed before independence for Tanganyika, Kenya Uganda and the other riparian states.
The Framework involves nine countries among them are five member states of the East African Community {EAC} and Egypt, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia which are not ember of the EAC.
The Deputy Director of the Urban Water Ministry in Tanzania Elizabeth Kungu was quoted by the media this week as saying that the project would cost Tshs. 255 billion, which is equivalent to USD 176 million.
She noted that the project would be partly funded by the Tanzania government and its development partners including the World Bank under the water sector development program.
Asked about Egypt and Sudan concerns, she said that based on o the previous experience ”The quantity of water drawn or to be drawn for both Shinyanga and Tabora towns is very little compared with the size of the lake.”
Lake Victoria, the second largest sweet water in the world covered 68,000 square kilometers bordering Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Its maximum depth is 80 meters.
A[art from Tabora town, the regional headquarters, the planned project will also benefit Nzega,Igunga Kigongwa,Isaka and Muhesa towns as well as the residents of 76 villages situated along the pipeline.
Tanzania Vice President Mohammed Gharib Bilal described the project as a solution to the persistent water problems in area covered by the project.
In 1910, the Germany had contemplated using Lake Victoria waters for irrigation, transport and production of electricity in the dry parts of Mwanza,Shinyanga,Tabora and Singida regions.
Official document at the Ministry of Water reveals that the ideas of taking water from the Lake Victoria and supplying to the dry Central area of the country, dates back to the German’s colonial era in Tanganyika.
However, when the British took the control of the then Tanganika Territory from the Germans following the defeat of its forces in the East African military campaign during the First World ,the emphasis on using the Lake Victoria water into the dry Central zone of Dodoma and Singida which are naturally dry. Instead the use of Lake Victoria water has ever since been limited to the use in areas around the lake.
There have been persistent calls by Tanzania, experts for the government to extend for the use of Lake Victoria waters to end water shortage and create an environment for irrigated agriculture and economic development.
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