Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)
3 October 2006
Tefera Beyene, who was head advisor in the Waterworks Enterprise Department at the Ministry of Water Resources, has taken over as the head of the Ministry's Trans-boundary Rivers Affairs Department, making him the lead negotiator from the Ministry in the Nile Basin Initiative.
The position was vacant after Musa Mohammed, a revered figure in Nile Basin dealings, resigned on August 3, 2006 after eight years in the post and left the country.
Musa was not only the most senior Ethiopian negotiator on the Nile issue, but was also member of the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework negotiations, the Nile Technical Advisory Committee (Nile-TAC) and the National Nile Basin Initiative Office.
"Tefera is a person who is a well versed in the sector," said Asfaw Dingamo, minister of Water Resources. "Though I did not agree with Musa's move to resign, I think Tefera is a very experienced and a person of high caliber."
Experts within the Ministry told Fortune that Tefera is the best person for the job and has a good potential to bring in results.
The Nile Basin Initiative was launched in 1999 with the help of the World Bank to reduce the potential for conflicts related to the Nile. It unites 10 countries directly affected by the Nile Basin including Eritrea participating as an observer.
The Initiative aspires to benefit all parties in a transitional arrangement until a permanent framework is in place. But the initiative is purely an advisory one. The agreement to participate in the Nile Basin Initiative does not deny any participating country's right to implement river projects unilaterally.
Tefera has worked in the water sector for 22 years. His career goes back to the defunct Water Resources Authority where he worked in the Design Study Supervision Department. He later moved to the Ministry's Dams and Energy Design Department where he worked for just over a year.
Tefera also worked in the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office as Interim Manager where he already worked in the Nile Initiative under the Eastern Nile Ministerial Advisory Committee.
"My plan is to bring together scholars in the field to work in a team as it is a national issue," said Tefera, who graduated as a civil engineer from University of Calcutta, India in 1985.
Musa's foreign travels put him at odds with the state minister, Adugna Jebessa, himself a veteran of the Ministry, according to reliable sources. When Musa left office, he told Fortune that he could not continue to work with the new state minister, and that his resignation was personal and nothing to do with government policies. Unlike during Musa's tenure, Tefera will report directly to Minister Asfaw.
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