Cairo in hot water over alleged Nile flooding coverup

Egypt’s government has been criticized for allegedly trying to silence reports of higher than usual Nile flooding rates, amid fears that it could hamper their efforts to reduce water usage.
An aerial view of farmland on the Nile River Delta, Egypt, is pictured through a plane window February 15, 2016. Egypt said on Sunday it would pay its local farmers a fixed price of 420 Egyptian pounds ($53.64) per ardeb (150 kg) of wheat in the new local procurement season starting in April, backtracking on reforms to its wheat farmer subsidy system. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh - RTX272R4
An aerial view of farmland on Egypt's Nile River Delta is seen through a plane window, Feb. 15, 2016. - REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
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Walaa Hussein
@walaahuseen
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CAIRO — A controversy has erupted between Egypt’s Water Ministry and the country’s media outlets over this year’s Nile flood forecasting.

The ministry had declared a state of emergency from May to August of this year due to drought, the worst to hit the Nile Basin in the past 100 years. Cairo was relying on this crisis to ensure the success of its new campaign to rationalize water usage, demanding that the citizens and farmers reduce their water consumption as much as possible.

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