Demeke Meknen, head of the Renaissance Dam National Coordination Council, told the Ethiopian Fana Radio on Tuesday that Egypt is using the dispute over the dam as a means to appease its internal problems.
“The Egyptian officials do not want to take advantage of the dam in a fair way,” he said.
“The success of the dam will be through the Ethiopian people, not by Egypt’s attempts to halt it,” he said, adding that his country is capable of building large-scale projects to preserve national unity without any funding from abroad.
Meknen praised Sudan for its position regarding the dam. “Khartoum agreed to share common resources in a fair way,” he said.
Ethiopia is celebrating the third anniversary of laying the foundation of the dam on 11 April.
Relations between Egypt and Ethiopia were strained when the latter started building the dam, as Egypt fears it will reduce its annual Nile water quota of 55.5 billion cubic meters. Egypt is also concerned about its security if the dam were to collapse for any reason.
Ethiopia considers the dam a sovereign development project to produce electricity. It does not accept any interference in the project from abroad.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
