Egypt will contribute over $40m towards the maintenance of River Nile in order to ensure water security in the Nile and Lake Victoria Basin. This was revealed by the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his one-day visit to Uganda.

In a dinner hosted by his Ugandan counterpart President Yoweri Museveni at State House Entebbe, Mubarak said that the Nile should no longer be an issue of conflict but a uniting factor for all the countries that depend on its waters.

"We should all work together to maintain the water levels of the Nile so that one country’s use of the Nile water does not affect the others,” remarked Mubarak.

He also said that talk of Arab countries benefiting more from the Nile should be stopped because the Nile could not be confined down south but rather the Nile Basin countries should be proud of sharing one of the world’s wonder features.

Egypt has also pledged more resources towards the eradication of the water hyacinth weed that is resurfacing on L. Victoria and is threatening to destroy other lakes and rivers.

Through a Ugandan ministry, Egypt will finance the project to ‘harvest’ the highly multiplying weed that had been wiped out in 2002. About $8m will be released before the end of this year while a team of Egyptian scientists and technocrats will be sent to research and find out better means of managing L. Victoria.

Mubarak was returning from  South Africa when he made the brief stop-over in Uganda to discuss with President Museveni some of the contentious issues the region is facing.

Increasing food and energy prices, the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar el Bashir were among the issues.

Mubarak had been in South Africa to discuss the ICC indictments with President Thabo Mbeki.       

The Egyptian president also said that countries down south should take advantage of COMESA and trade with Arab countries.

He said that countries with cultivatable land should exploit the ready food market in North Africa since most of the countries there lie in the desert.

He added that this would also give southern African countries a chance to dig into the abundant oil resources in the North.

Mubarak added that Egypt is developed industrially and open for COMESA trade.

He also advised that the Nile Basin countries should hold bilateral talks about re-exploring the Nile to remove any conflicts and disputes.

The Nile has of late become a controversial issue with a new study disputing its current source, and another study claiming that it’s not the longest river in the world.

President Mubarak has rarely visited African countries since 1990 when he survived an assassination attempt in Ethiopia.

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