The Truth First: the Julius Nyerere Dam, While Egypt Played a Key Role in Its Implementation
In recent days, following the inauguration of the Julius Nyerere Dam in Tanzania, Ethiopian media have repeatedly circulated false claims, the latest of which was a report published by “Gazeta Plus” about the dam. My response here is not a defense of inaccurate information, but rather a defense of a complete reading of the information, because there is a major difference between correcting inaccurate information and presenting half the truth as the whole truth.
I will begin with the point over which there is no disagreement: the Julius Nyerere Dam is a Tanzanian project, and its primary financing was provided by the Tanzanian side. Therefore, it is not correct to describe it as a project whose entire cost was financed by the Egyptian government from the Egyptian state budget.
This is something that does not require debate, but is confirmed by Tanzanian records. However, this is where the problem with the published article begins, because moving from the fact that the financing was Tanzanian to claiming that Egyptian involvement was nothing more than the participation of “commercial contracting companies” is an inaccurate conclusion that does not reflect the nature of the project or the level of Egypt’s role in it.
Let us return to the official documents themselves. The Tanzanian Electric Supply Company, TANESCO, clearly states that the Tanzanian government, represented by TANESCO, signed on December 12, 2018, an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Commissioning (EPCC) contract with a consortium comprising Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric, and that construction work officially began on June 15, 2019. So yes, the project is Tanzanian, and the owner and contracting party are on the Tanzanian side.
But does this mean that the Egyptian role was merely that of a passing commercial contractor?
Here, the answer is: No.
The evidence is not statements by the Egyptian media, but rather what the Egyptian Presidency itself announced. In April 2023, the Presidency of the Arab Republic of Egypt announced that President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi had followed developments in the work on the Julius Nyerere Dam, describing it as the largest development project being implemented in Tanzania, and confirmed that the project was being implemented by the Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric consortium “under the supervision of the Egyptian government,” describing it as a model of Egypt’s cooperation with African countries.
In December 2023, the Egyptian Presidency announced that President El-Sisi was following the stages of the project’s implementation to ensure the achievement of the highest levels of performance in accordance with the highest international standards, and explicitly linked this to Tanzania benefiting from Egyptian expertise in major projects.
In November 2021, the Egyptian position was even clearer, when President El-Sisi announced during his meeting with Tanzanian President Samia Hassan Egypt’s “full support” for the implementation of the Julius Nyerere Dam project, and for the project to become a model and symbol of cooperation and friendship between Egypt and Tanzania.
Therefore, we are dealing with three different levels that must not be confused:
The financing of the project, which is Tanzanian.
The implementation of the project, which is being carried out by an Egyptian consortium comprising Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric.
Egyptian political and technical support and follow-up, which is an officially documented role and cannot be reduced to the phrase “a contracting company obtained a contract.”
In fact, the Egyptian Presidency used the expression “Egyptian support” for the project in November 2024, while President El-Sisi spoke of Egypt’s keenness to provide various forms of support for development efforts in African countries.
Here, we must stop at a fundamental point in understanding African relations.
A state does not exercise its role abroad only by providing money.
There is economic power, technical expertise, national companies, technology transfer, training, capacity building, political support, government follow-up, opening markets, and building trust between countries.
In the case of the Julius Nyerere Dam, Egypt provided one of its most important implementation and engineering capabilities through two Egyptian companies that participated in building a major national-scale project inside Tanzania.
Indeed, Tanzanian financial records themselves do not present the picture that the article attempts to reduce to the phrase “the companies obtained a contract and that was the end of the matter.” The report of the Tanzanian Controller and Auditor General shows advance payments related to the Julius Nyerere Hydropower Station project, and the name of the Egyptian consortium, Arab Contractors and Elsewedy, appears as the implementing contractor, with payments processed according to stages of completion and certificates of completion of works.
This is normal in any project of this size: the owner provides the financing, the contractor carries out the work, and payments are made according to the contract and the stages of completion. But the political and strategic value does not disappear simply because the money came from the treasury of the state that owns the project.
If we were to take this logic to its conclusion, we would have to say that whenever a national company of one country implements a strategic project in another country, that country has no connection to the project except as a “contractor,” which is a limited understanding of the nature of economic and diplomatic power in today’s world.
There is also another point in the published article concerning the completion date. Yes, any party conducting an investigation has the right to point out that the original implementation deadline was not the actual final deadline, and that the project experienced extensions in its schedule. I see no problem in acknowledging this, because a major project does not need its figures or deadlines to be embellished in order for us to prove its success. Likewise, acknowledging the existence of extensions does not turn the project into a failure.
More importantly, the project should be assessed on the basis of what has actually been accomplished, its impact on Tanzania’s energy sector, and the ability of Egyptian companies to implement a project of this size and complexity, rather than by selecting one point and using it to redefine the entire project.
The more important question here is:
Why are we trying in the first place to turn the Julius Nyerere Dam into a battle over “who paid the money”? If Tanzania financed its national project, this is not a diminution of Egypt; quite the opposite. It means that Egypt was able to provide Tanzania with engineering and implementation expertise at the level of a major national project, and that Egyptian companies were able to compete and win the implementation of one of the most important infrastructure projects in an African country.
This in itself is an Egyptian economic and strategic achievement. The success of the project does not mean that Egypt built a dam in another country with its own money. Rather, it means that Egypt was able to be an implementing, technical and strategic partner in a Tanzanian development project, while fully respecting Tanzania’s ownership of its project and its financing of it.
This is precisely the model that we should talk about when discussing modern Egyptian-African relations. We do not want a relationship based only on grants, nor do we want Africa to be a market for aid. We want a relationship based on partnership, investment, expertise transfer, national companies, trade, manufacturing, infrastructure, training and capacity building. The Julius Nyerere Dam provides an important model for this type of relationship.
Therefore, if “Gazeta Plus” wants to correct a piece of information, I agree with it that it is necessary not to say that Egypt financed the entire cost of constructing the dam. But if the purpose of the correction is to reach the conclusion that “Egypt had no role in the project other than that of a commercial contractor,” then this is a conclusion that is not consistent with the official documents, and the difference between the two is significant.
The financing is Tanzanian, yes. The ownership is Tanzanian, yes. The contract was signed by TANESCO on behalf of the Tanzanian government, yes. But the implementation is Egyptian, the implementing consortium is Egyptian, the Egyptian follow-up is official and at the highest level, Egyptian political and technical support for the project is documented, and the Egyptian Presidency itself linked the project to a model of cooperation and friendship between the two countries.
Therefore, the more accurate description is not “an Egyptian dam,” because that is incorrect, nor is it “a Tanzanian project in which Egypt had no connection other than as a contractor,” because that is also incorrect.
The more accurate description is this: the Julius Nyerere Dam is a Tanzanian national project financed by the Tanzanian side and implemented by an Egyptian consortium comprising Arab Contractors and Elsewedy Electric, and it received high-level Egyptian political and technical support and follow-up, making it one of the most prominent models of Egyptian-Tanzanian cooperation in infrastructure and energy.
This is not a defense of Egypt simply for the sake of defending it. This is the truth when all its elements are placed before the reader. In matters concerning Egyptian-African relations, particularly in the Nile Basin, we should not practice selectivity in presenting information. We should neither exaggerate Egypt’s role by saying that Egypt financed what it did not finance, nor diminish Egypt’s role by saying that the state did nothing except that an Egyptian company obtained a contract.
Professional reading requires us to tell the whole truth, even if it is more complex than the quick headlines. That is the rule I always adhere to when covering African affairs: We do not defend Egypt with inaccurate information, and we do not diminish Egypt’s role with incomplete information.
The Truth First.
* Ramy Zohdy — African Affairs Expert .
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