Mesganaw Andualem

 

Helpless Ethiopia’s Biggest Lake, Lake Tana, covered with Water Hyacinth

It’s only a fool’s mind that would refer the TPLF Constitution (called Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia) to make an argument for the reasons of Lake Tana Crisis. But let us be fools once to play on their game and show what they are doing.

As per the TPLF Constitution Article 51 (11), The Federal Government “shall determine and administer the utilization of the waters or rivers and lakes linking two or more States or crossing the boundaries of the national territorial jurisdiction.” Similarly, Article 55 states (a) the House of Representatives administers “Utilization of land and other natural resources, of rivers and lakes crossing the boundaries of the national territorial jurisdiction or linking two or more States). These two bodies can only control the lake which is crossing or linking two or more states. In this sense, the Federal Government and the House of Representatives do not have business with Lake Tana as the lake is situated solely in the Amhara Regional State. But, to the contrary, Article 51(5) states that the Powers and Functions of the Federal Government is that: “It shall enact laws for the utilization and conservation of land and other natural resources, historical sites and objects.” As of this article, the Federal Government’s duty was to enact laws to conserve Lake Tana. But it did not. Article 97(5) states regional States “shall levy and collect taxes on income from transport services rendered on waters within their territory.” This leaves the Amhara Regional State to levy and collect taxes on Lake Tana transportation, fishery, and tourism. Besides collecting taxes, Article 52 (2d) defines, the Amhara Regional State shall “administer land and other natural resources in accordance with Federal laws.” To protect Lake Tana, is therefore, the Regional State’s duty, as is the duty of the Federal Government.

 

 

Therefore, the Constitution clearly states that both the Federal Government and the Amhara Regional Government should, must protect, conserve, and preserve Lake Tana. Not doing the expectation as they stated in their law would mean that both are accountable for what is happening to Lake Tana. In other words, they are watching Lake Tana to disappear, by doing nothing. They are rather taking the public concern as a tool for attention diversion. This leads to remember the long-term objective of TPLF, as stated in their manifesto, that they want to destroy Amhara and whatever belongs to them. And the other objective is to make Amhara live in an endless social turmoil, as a result, the emotional turmoil and loss of socioeconomic benefit from the lake is one of the tools to execute that plan. They are using the Tana crisis as a means to spread social turmoil, resource deprivation, and attention diversion. Why then the ANDM preferred to see Tana to disappear? Because ANDM is a collection of Amharic speaking Anti-Amhara puppets who are busy in making their Tigrian Lords Happy.

What is unbelievably amazing is #Egypt’s silence on this matter.
CC: Daily News Egypt Ahram Online