The former Minister of Irrigation criticizes a decision made by Kamel Idris: It was not a pantry

Follow-up- Al-Zawiya Net- Professor Yasser Abbas, the former Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources, said that the decision of the Prime Minister Dr. Kamel Idris, with the inclusion of the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources to the Ministries of Agriculture and Irrigation, the Environment and Sustainability Water Resources was not correct, for procedural and technical reasons.

He noted that from the procedural point of view in light of the exceptional circumstances the country is going through as a result of the war, the first goal should be to restore state institutions to what they were before the war, not making significant structural changes that increase the complexity of the situation and lead to failure to provide the required services.

He pointed out that the Ministry of Irrigation is not a small ministry, but rather a huge institution that includes thousands of workers distributed from the Tokar Delta in the east to the states of Darfur in the west, and from Al -Dim Station in the south to Dongola in the north and its tasks include the management of six major tanks, and four irrigation projects “Al -Jazeera, Al -Rahad, Al -Jadida, Al -Suki”, along with dozens of specialized departments and technical bodies, as well as vital files related to the Nile water, The negotiations of the Renaissance Dam, and the High Dam.

Yasser stressed that the redistribution of these tasks and cadres between different ministries is a great organizational burden that cannot be tolerated in light of the war, and requires extensive studies and natural conditions in which such a change can be implemented calmly and planning.

He pointed out that, technically, the process of providing irrigation water is interconnected and complex, starting to measure the water at the Deem Station on the Ethiopian border – a stage preceded by sensitive negotiations with the basin countries – then storing water in the Rsiris tank, and passing this water through the turbines to generate electricity, before it was distributed from the Sennar tank via the irrigation network to the Al -Jazeera project.

He pointed out that the separation of these stages between multiple ministries may lead to a defect in coordination and catastrophic results, as previous experiences, such as Minister Wadih Habashi’s experience during the era of Al -Numayri, and the experience of Minister Abdel Halim Al -Mutafi during the rescue era.

Yasser said that regional and international experiences clarify the importance of preserving the unity of an independent ministry for irrigation and water resources, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the rest of the Nile Basin countries keep this ministry as one entity, because of the harmony it requires between technical and organizational aspects.

He affirmed that the Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation is calculated during the two years of war that it was able to preserve the safety of the five tank system, despite the complexities of the field situation, and the operation of the Renaissance Dam, where we witnessed how the militia tampering with the Tanks of Jabal Awlia caused the flooding of the white villages of the Nile in late 2024 AD.