By Bida Elly David
The national Minister of Information and government spokesperson yesterday said the Ugandan government has issued an alert to South Sudan as they prepared to free their dam amid too much accumulation of water.
South Sudan, the young East African nation since attaining its independence from Sudan in 2011 has not established their own dam to ensure systematic movement and flow of the Nile water as a mechanism to control and mitigate flooding.
The government signed memorandum of understanding with the Egyptian government, South Sudan had carried an initiative to introduce dredging as one of the ways to mitigate random flow of water from the Nile.
Despite the numerous efforts invested to carry the initiative, some citizens and other political leaders have dictated against the plan saying that the idea of dredging would negatively affect some states as they would be exposed to serious flooding.
Speaking to the media recently, Michael Makuei Lueth, the national Minister of Information predicted the worst challenge South Sudan would face if Uganda opens their dam to allow the accumulated water to flow.
He said South Sudan currently does not have water regulator that would control the random flow of the Nile water but they remained optimistic to bear the situation if it comes to worst.
The minister further said that Jebel Ulia the Sudanese dam was the only one that would rescue the Country from being submerged in case Uganda releases off water from their dam to avoid dangers that they would incur.
“The Ugandan government gave us a warning because their dam is under threat by water and they may decide to open up the water so that it can flow. If they open their water and Jebel Ulia dam does not open then we shall really be submerged by the water.” “So that is the situation in which we are and we are hopeful that things will go well,” he said.
Makuei underscored that they had no option to criticize Uganda as they were fighting to rescue their dam from being broken down by water.
He added that the government of South Sudan was in talks with Sudan government encouraging them to open Jebel Ulia dam to rescue South Sudan from the future tragedy.
“Yes, of course Uganda gave us a warning because they would not allow water to breakdown their dam since we know water is more powerful and as such there is no way we can tell Uganda that don’t open and give route for the water to flow otherwise their dam will collapse.”
“What we are doing now is that we are in talks with Sudan encouraging them to open that dam. They have their dams also ahead there and if they want to maintain water, they will maintain it over there.”
“Sudan is also in crisis in terms of water. Really it is shocking. If some of you have been following some parts of South Sudan are even under water,” he said.