Beautifying Sheger
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the ‘Beautifying Sheger’ section of the project to be built by the Chinese construction giant CCCC. The 12km section of the entire 56kms river cleanup and rehabilitation work is being supported by the Chinese Government in a grant secured earlier this year. The project is expected to be finalized by May 2020.
US supports ongoing GERD talks
In preparation for tripartite technical committee discussions made up of delegations from Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, in Khartoum the White House announced support for the negotiation adding countries in the basin have a right to economic development.
During the recent meeting Egypt came up with a new proposal that Ethiopia strongly rejected saying it went against its sovereignty.
In her address President Sahlework Zewde at the UN Annual Summit said the use of the Nile is determined by mutual benefit and international rules. She added that the issue of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) should be left to the recommendations of the three countries. A day before her address Abdel Fattah el Sisi in his speech at the UN called on the international community to intervene in the GERD.
In a White House statement on Thursday October 3 support was given by the United States to Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan’s ongoing negotiations to reach a cooperative, sustainable, and mutually beneficial agreement on filling and operating the GERD.
“All Nile Valley countries have a right to economic development and prosperity. The Administration calls on all sides to put forth good faith efforts to reach an agreement that preserves those rights, while simultaneously respecting each other’s Nile water equities,” the statement added.
Since Monday the three countries’ technical committee talked about the technicalities of the project.
In September at the ministerial meeting in Cairo Egypt came up with a new proposal wanting the dam to release a minimum of 40 billion cubic meters of water annually. Egypt relies on the Nile for 90 percent of its freshwater and it wants the GERD’s reservoir to release a higher volume of water than Ethiopia is willing to guarantee.
Ethiopia has not said exactly how much water they are willing to release but they feel that they should be the one to determine this amount. In his latest press conference, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Electricity, Sileshi Bekele responded to Egypt’s request by saying they were contradicting commitments previously made between the three countries.
The proposal stated Ethiopia should release more water when the Aswan Dam goes below 165 meters. ‘It is unacceptable since we don’t have information about their water usage, and this does not take into account our future developmental plan,” he explained.
Ethiopia and Sudan were expected to come up with a counter proposal during the Khartoum discussion. At the same time the ministerial meeting was conducted for two days starting Friday a day after the technical committee finalized the discussion.
The ministerial meeting focuses on the recommendation of water filling drafted by the technical committee of the three countries.
Ethiopia said that GERD will start power production by the end of 2020 with two turbines. Currently about six companies are involved after the state-owned Metal and Engineering Corporation was excluded from the project.
The tripartite ministerial meeting has been halted due to political instability in Sudan for the past year. GERD will generate over 5,250MW of electricity.
New law fights overloading
The amendment of a proclamation for trucks, known as the ‘vehicle size and weight regulation’ has been tabled to the Council of Ministers.
The draft regulation will improve the axle load control and impose penalties from the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA) against those who abuse the nation’s transportation laws.
Yoseph Tamiru, Pavement Management Team Leader at ERA, told Capital, that the new draft law has been tabled to the council for the second time after authorities cleared up some questions concerning the initial document.
Over the past three decades things improved, including the standard of vehicles, roads and improvement of technology so the law was revised.
An international company called Lee International Consultants conducted the study and changed the previous regulation, adopting the sub-continental agreement of COMESA that Ethiopia signed.
The existing regulation does not specifically mention the penalty for over loading. A judge will issue a civil penalty in this case. “The fine is very insignificant compared with the damage,” he said.
The regulation imposes a fine between 2,000 and 42,000 birr. The draft regulation has a specific fine, and mentions the total weight, which was not mentioned in the 30 year old law. A weight limit is being imposed to control overloading and to make sure, for example, that trucks don’t cross bridges with lower carrying capacity than the truck is holding.
The new regulation mandates a three axle load limit, and ERA will be responsible for enforcing the axle load. In the 1990 regulation article 4 sub article C the steering axle of a vehicle shall not carry a gross load in excess of 8 tons which is also similar in the new draft. The 1990 Council of Ministers’ regulation signed by then Deputy Prime Minister Hailu Yimenu which was amended in the 1962 law also stated that the rear axle of a vehicle equipped with dual tyres shall not carry a gross load in excess of 10 tons.
Sub article D stated that the gross weight with of a two axles vehicle shall not exceed 17 tons, where the distance between the axels are not more than 1,300 mm.
In the new regulation based on the ERA geometric design the sub article D; 17 tons is reduced to 16 tons because the latest study indicates that the distance between the two axles does not have a significant change in the loading capacity. The new regulation also mandates three axles which is different than before and says the loading capacity maximum is 24 tons.
Three axles is the international standard that every country is currently using, according to the sector expert at ERA. The previous law did not mention the total weight, while the current one limits truck weight to 58 tons.
ERA improved the modern axle load control system but problem of overloading is growing. Yoseph said that improving the controlling system means expanding the work and collecting much data. With economic growth illegal overloading is increasing.
ERA weighs tucks from 3.5 tones and above. Over loading is one of the major causes for damaging roads before their life expectancy. Currently ERA has 14 controlling centers throughout the country and plans an additional six centers for the future.
