The announcement raised eyebrows, as it followed a call only last week by Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, that Egypt should not monopolize the Nile waters.

Mutagamba was speaking at a joint news conference with Egyptian irrigation and water resources minister Mahmoud Abu Zeid, where she stressed they had reached a complete agreement over the controversial issue.

“There is a full and deep understanding between Egypt and Uganda on the best use of shared water resources within the framework of the Nile Basin Initiative,” she said.

On April 1 Museveni became the first head of state to enter a now fierce debate over the Nile waters, telling Egypt not to monopolize the river.

“Egypt should not monopolize the use of Nile waters for irrigation,” Museveni told reporters at a joint press conference in Kampala with visiting presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

He said that treaties signed between Britain and Egypt in 1929 and 1959 restricting other basin states, which were then British colonies, from increasing their share of the Nile water were not applicable to other Nile Basin countries.

“The 1929 Nile agreement was between Egypt and Britain. We are not Britain and, therefore, we should sit down and work out a new arrangement on this water,” Museveni said.

Use of the Nile water has become increasingly controversial in recent months, with countries south of Egypt, under their Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) grouping, advocating for new agreements to give them equal say in the use of the waters for development.

“No one wants Egypt to starve, but let us sit down and talk,” Museveni said, criticizing some Ugandan parliamentarians for suggesting recently that Egypt should pay for the water it uses.

“Though it is my belief that the water of the Nile must be rationally used, I do not agree with some members of parliament who have suggested that Egypt should pay a certain charge for the water,” he said.

Some Ugandan MPs had suggested that money Egypt would pay for the water would help compensate what Uganda pays for oil from Egypt.

Museveni stressed they could not be charged because oil was a source of energy, while water was a source of life.

“We can get other sources of energy, but we cannot find alternatives for water as a source of life,” he said.

Tanzania is planning a major water project on Lake Victoria, the source of the Nile, and Kenya has said it will also undertake major projects using the lake’s water.

The NBI’s 10 members met in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on March 18 and 19, and are due to meet again in Uganda from May 31 to June 5 to try and negotiate a new framework.

The NBI, set up in 1999, groups together 10 African countries – Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Donors have committed $100 million to support efforts to reach a new deal on the Nile, the world’s longest river.AFP