CHARM OFFENSIVE

Egypt has launched a charm offensive on Kenya even as Nairobi insists Cairo must sign the new treaty on the use of River Nile’s waters.

The signing of the Comprehensive Framework Agreement by upstream countries has annoyed Cairo, which has a disproportionate share of the water according to colonial era treaties.

And in Cairo on Tuesday, Egypt offered to fund a range of projects in Kenya.

In a meeting with a visiting delegation led by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, his Egyptian counterpart, Dr Ahmed Nazif, said the projects include environmental conservation, water harvesting, drilling of boreholes and construction of dams.

For a start, he said, the Egyptian government will revive a borehole drilling programme started in early 2000.

But in Nairobi, Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula denied that the North African country was attempting to entice Kenya and other upstream states to drop the CFA treaty and return to the 1929 and 1959 agreements.

Mr Wetang’ula reiterated calls to Egypt and Sudan to come on board and sign the CFA.

He echoed Mr Odinga’s remarks when he met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo on Sunday that Kenya would not compromise the security of countries that use the Nile.

A Kenyan expert said Egypt should be made to pay for the water it has been drawing from the Nile.

Dr Philip Raburu, a university lecturer and hydro-biologist said that Egypt’s offer to help in the conservation of Kenya’s water towers was a right, not a favour.

He said that in other agreements on transboundary waters, downstream countries pay the upstream countries for the water they get.