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.
US supports ongoing GERD talks
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.
Warehouse problem delays trucks
The closing of the weighed facility at the Bure Warehouse at the Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX) forced traders to load their products on trucks for over ten days.
Traders that Capital talked said that since September 25 the weigh facility at Bure has stopped services due to technical problems.
They said that even though ECX has information about the problem it did not work to correct it. Traders who wanted anonymity told Capital that due to the disruption the weigh trucks have been forced to wait at the center for almost two weeks.
“As a solution an optional small weight has been provided but labour who moves grains from trucks to warehouses are asking for additional payment for every bag, which are mostly 100 kilograms,” traders said.
This is unacceptable since it will increase the cost of the product and make it unfeasible compared with the selling price, according to traders.
They complained that the product mainly soybeans is not getting ECX warehouse in the past two weeks that makes the price to hike in the trading floor that is located at the heart of Addis Ababa, around Mexico Square.
According to people working in the business, the price of the commodity has increased by about 160 birr in the past few days. The ECX October 1 trading data shows that Bure Soybeans sold for up to 1,685 birr per quintal. “As a result, there is a scarcity of the product at the ECX warehouse and the price has gone up,” one of the traders expressed. He said the price was about 1,500 birr per quintal before the problem happened at Bure.
He expressed his concern that if the problem is not solved shortly the price of their product might significantly drop. “The product stacked at Bure was harvested during the past season but the new harvesting has arrived so our product might lose value,” a trader waiting to move his product said.
They said all actors like traders, transporters and truck owners are being affected.
Netsanet Tesfaye, Public Relation Head at ECX, told Capital that the case has been identified. “We are using leased weigh at Bure so far I have information that the equipment that will replace the existing machine has arrived at Djibouti Port and its expected the operation will recommence by tomorrow,” he said.
ECX, the electronic trading floor, has commenced the exclusive trading of soybean late last year. Since then the trading and export of the bean has shown significant growth. Bure that is located 410km northwest of Addis Ababa is one of the 21 warehouses ECX operates. It has a capacity of 100,000 quintals of grain, while the biggest facility is located at Humera, 988km northwest of the capital, with a capacity to handle 350, 000 quintals.
THE RED CAPITALISTS
The Peoples Republic of China celebrated its 70th anniversary on October 1, 2019. When the Communist Party of China (CPC) usurped state power in 1949, the country was in shambles. The CPC had to deal, not only with the after effects of WWII, which actually started when the Japanese first invaded Manchuria in 1931, but also the remnants of the powerful Chinese nationalists. The Kuomintang (the Chinese Nationalist Party) was a force to reckon with. Despite their differences with the CPU, the contribution of the nationalists in the liberation and consolidation of the modern Chinese state should not be undermined!
After the final defeat of the Kuomintang (by the communists), the nationalists evacuated the mainland and moved to the islands, mostly to Taiwan. After Kuomintang’s departure, the CPC established itself as the sole hegemon of the Chinese State. Once the CPC assumed the uncontested leadership position, it began to craft long-term transformative strategies along the socialist path. Initially, the strategy was to pursue Marxism-Leninism along the line of the USSR. In the late 1950s and 60s, the two communist parties started to diverge in their ambitions. For example, Maoism envisioned a revolution that is comprehensive and always on the go. Consequently, the CPU embarked on new initiatives, like the ‘cultural revolution’. Such things were not on the agenda of the Communist Party of the USSR. On its part, the USSR concentrated on the consolidation of Eastern Europe and the forging of allies in the far-flung places. The project of ‘catching up’, i.e., catching up with the west, remained the primary obsession of the USSR communist party. The increase of industrial production as well as advancing military weaponry became its preoccupation!
Up until the death of Mao Zedong, questioning any aspect of Maoism would have landed one in some obscure corner of the country, if one were lucky. Deng Xiaoping, the ‘architect of modern China’ was one such victim. He was actually exiled twice. He was removed from such top posts as head of the red army and was made a mere cook in a remote high school somewhere in the outback of the People’s Republic. Another time he was sent to work in a tractor factory. However, as one of the most dynamic leaders of Communist China, Deng was always highly regarded by his comrades, even his adversaries. Despite temporal whims of the times that saw his frequent bouts with Mao, Deng nonetheless remained within the top echelons of the Communist party. His comebacks testify to the level of trust he commanded within the party and the country. As a military man, Deng did not have much of a qualm in crashing the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989. After the demise of the ‘gang of four’, Deng managed to push his plan for China’s modernization. These were centered on the economy, agriculture, science and defense. His pragmatic approach to all and sundry was immortalized in his famous aphorism. ‘I don’t care about the color of the cat so long as it catches the mice’!
In 1979, under the influence of Deng, the CPC adopted ‘Socialism with Chinese Characteristic’ or ‘Socialist ideology with free enterprise’. The rest, as they say, is history! The first reform targeted the agricultu sector. Ten years later reform was introduced in the urban/industrial sector. Thereafter, the reform dynamics took root and propelled science and technology with spill over effect on the defense industries. It didn’t take long for the whole of the Chinese society to be galvanized into joining the world of market competition. Obviously the change was not as smooth as many think. The population policy introduced in the early years of reform, though it initially gave a major boost to income, had lingering effects. Second phase problems associated with the population policy resulted in the shortage of eligible women, as Chinese society put emphasis on raising boys. The massive displacement of the rural population also caused some associated problems. The eastern seaboard (China’s industrial heartland), which absorbed the surplus labor from the land, mostly as a result of market oriented agriculture policy in the hinterland, is another issue on its own. The overall pollution of the industrial regions is also frightening, to say the least. Be that as it may, there is a lot to learn from the experience of China. No country in human history has raised standard of living for so many in such a short time!
Characteristically, the Chinese leadership maintains that China is still a developing country, not a ‘developed’ one. There is a grain of truth in it. However, according to World Bank’s PPP (purchasing power parity), Chinese GDP is $27. 331 trillion, while that of the USA is $20. 494 trillion. For comparison, European Union’s GDP is $22.000 trillion. In actual fact, based on real prices of goods and services and not on nominal pricing in dollars, the Chinese economy is a lot bigger than the US. It is bigger than the US economy by as much as the GDP of Germany and the UK combined! Here is our favorite Chinese saying, which might turn off our African elites only used to vacuous buffooneries. “Hide brilliance cherish obscurity”. Good Day!
