When the inauguration of the Renaissance Dam was announced, some said Meles Zenawi should be given all the credit. The existing prime minister shouldn’t be given credit for constructing a dam that wasn’t his idea, they contended. Other debaters, however, argued that despite harsh criticism from both domestic and foreign sources, the Prime Minister should be rewarded for tenacity and completing the dam’s construction. How did Prime Minister Abiy contribute to the dam’s construction? The lack of a suitable project evaluation was a major challenge for Meles’s successor, Hailemariam Desalegn, regarding the dam following his death.
Hailemariam deserves a great deal of recognition for her tremendous efforts on the Renaissance Dam. He was really weak at speeding up the process, though. He did not dismiss personnel who were putting off clearing forests and working on the dam’s hydromechanical features. Some METEC generals involved in the dam appeared to be unafraid of anyone after Meles’s passing.
This was one of the challenges Engineer Simegnew Bekele confronted. Reporters asked Simegnew about the project’s delays, but he declined to answer. It was clear that he was afraid of some people. After taking office, Prime Minister Abiy conducted a comprehensive inspection of the dam. His decisions regarding the project could be implemented. He made numerous trips to the dam to ensure a strict construction schedule was followed. He was able to save time and money by having the pipe-like metal components supplied by truck and then prepped and welded on-site within the dam’s compound.
Furthermore, there was a lot of outside pressure on the Renaissance Dam. About five years ago, President Donald Trump famously said, “If an agreement is not reached between Egypt and Ethiopia on the dam’s operation and water flow, Egypt will ‘blow up’ the dam,” when he summoned Ethiopian officials to his office. Despite this strain, the dam’s construction is one of the prime minister’s achievements. Along with helping to complete the dam, the prime minister has also put up with countless threats and declarations from Egypt and opposed repeated claims from Sudan and Egypt that “Ethiopia should not generate power from the dam without signing an agreement with us.”
The prime minister’s other projects include raising fish in the artificial lake the dam produced and selling electricity from the dam to nearby nations like Kenya.