Top Nile Basin Negotiator Resigns

By Wudineh Zenebe - Fortune Staff Writer

05 September 2006

In an unexpected turn of events, an expert at the Ministry of Water Resources has resigned and has left the country. Musa Mohammed, head of the Trans-boundary Rivers Affairs Department, was a revered figure in the Nile Basin Initiative; his departure leaves the Ministry with the difficult challenge of replacing someone with his level of experience, according to informed sources.

Musa resigned from the Ministry on August 3, 2006, reliable sources disclosed. He was one of the most senior officials to represent the country in Nile basin negotiations over the last eight years.

The Nile Basin Initiative was launched in 1999 with the help of the World Bank to reduce the potential of conflicts related to the River Nile; it instead aspires to benefit all parties, as a transitional arrangement until a permanent framework is in place.

It is guided by a shared vision to achieve sustainable socio-economic development through the equitable utilisation of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources. The agreement to participate in the Nile Basin Initiative reserves Ethiopia's right to implement any project in the Blue Nile sub-basin unilaterally, at any given time.

Musa was not only the senior Ethiopian negotiator on the Nile issue; he was also member of the Nile River Basin cooperative framework negotiations, the Nile Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC) and the National Nile Basin Initiative office.

"He was admired and authoritative," said a friend.

Trained as a lawyer, Musa started his work in the trans-boundary department, within the Water Resource Commission and later shifted to the Ministry of Water Resources. The Commission had a number of experts that had studied abroad particularly after it became the Ethio-Valley Development Studies Authority in 1979, a period when a many studies were done on the water sector.

It is these foreign travels that put him at odds with the state minister, Adugna Jebessa, himself a veteran of the Ministry, according to reliable sources.

"The trans-boundary department is under the State Minister's oversight but Musa never reported back about his work and he also liked to travel abroad," State Minister Adugna told Fortune. "His travels affected his work in the office, thus had been served with reminders to focus on his work within the country",

Musa's request for a leave to travel to the United States was declined by the state minister. He was reportedly granted the permission to leave by the minister.

"My resignation is personal and has nothing to do with government policies and no politics are involved," Musa told Fortune in an email exchange. "I realised that it is absolutely impossible for me to continue to work with the new state minister."

He was to be one of many who have left the Ministry over the years. With the formation of the new Ministry of Water Resources in 1987, more than 40 experts left the organisation in a disagreement with their superiors, said these sources.

Mekonen Leulseged, head of the Research and Development department and another senior member of the Nile-TAC, also resigned after a similar disagreement. The two experts were actively involved in the Nile basin initiative negotiations; they have yet to be replaced.

The two experts in the department have spent only three and eleven months on the job and are unlikely candidates to replace their predecessors, said an expert who once worked in the same department.

"His [Musa] resignation is a big blow to the department and the ministry," said an expert at the Ministry. "We cannot afford to lose these experts, and we should look after them to make sure they do not leave."