Are Egypt's new water discoveries just a distraction?
Egypt keeps stacking its stories up higher as its water woes deepen.
It seems every time Egypt finds itself in a critical position in the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam negotiations, it rushes to announce the discovery of some new groundwater reserve.
That happened in 2012 against the backdrop of the failed settlement with Ethiopia under then-Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. At that time, the Egyptian Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation announced the discovery of an underground basin in the Qattara Depression — enough water to support the cultivation of 260,000 acres of land. However, the details of the discovery still haven't been disclosed.
Last month, Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hossam Maghazi announced the discovery of an underground basin in the Minya governorate, which he claimed covered the equivalent of 85% of Egypt's area. This "disclosure" embarrassed the Egyptian government after reports emerged that the ministry was actually talking about the already discovered and well-known Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System stretching from Egypt to Sudan, Libya and Chad.
The news made the rounds on social media with statements from the public deriding the ministry and statements from water experts denouncing the government’s misleading of the public.
