Tanzania parliament disappointed over delay to ratify Nile River agreement -Coastweek -

DAR ES SALAAM, (Xinhua) --  Tanzanian parliament on Monday said the delay by the government to ratify the Nile River Basin Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) was denying the east African country the right to make good use of the Nile River water. “Tanzania could have benefitted through the use of the Nile River water for power generation, irrigation farming and for domestic use,” Saidi Nkumba, the vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Water, Agriculture and Livestock, told the National Assembly in Dodoma when tabling the January 2014 to January 2015 implementation report of the parliamentary on water, agriculture and livestock. Nkumba said the agreement has set clear procedures of the Nile River water sharing among the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) member states of Tanzania, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Egypt and Sudan. He said only Ethiopia and Rwanda have ratified the CFA. In October 2014, Mark Mwandosya, the Minister of State in the President’s Office, said the cabinet has okayed the CFA to be ratified.