The Jonglei Canal was conceived and executed without involving South Sudanese people and it is not a national project.
This was the thesis Water Resources minister Paul Mayom Akec shared with journalists in Juba on Tuesday.The minister said the project to be resurrected has to be studied and redesigned on South Sudan’s terms.
Mr Mayom noted that hundreds of thousands of cattle have already died in the canal and it would be more urgent to dump it.
The idea to dig the Jonglei Canal to dry the Sudd, one of the biggest wetlands of the world, is old and it would benefit Sudan and Egypt with extra water.
Digging started in 1978 but the civil war stopped in 1984 with 240 kilometres already dug.
The whole canal would be 360 kilometres long.