The Face of Truth | Ibrahim Shaglawi Merowe Dam… and the Engineering of Misinformation
The recent electricity crisis revealed that the Merowe Dam has become one of the most important pillars of Sudan’s national security. The shutdown of its main transformers caused widespread disruption to electricity and water supplies. It is therefore important to revisit the narratives portraying the dam as a failure, while reality has proven that it is one of the main pillars behind the resilience of the country’s power sector.
From this perspective, it becomes necessary to revisit the article published by researcher Moataz Mahjoub Osman entitled: “The Curse of Merowe Dam? Or the Curse of an Interest-Based Loan?”
In my view, the problem with the article is that it does not begin with facts in order to reach conclusions. Rather, it starts with a predetermined conclusion and then selectively chooses facts that support it. This is one of the most influential forms of misinformation in shaping public opinion, where partially correct information is used to reach entirely incorrect conclusions.
The author begins by discussing the loans that financed the project and the jurisprudential debate that accompanied them. He then moves to the operation of the dam, the transmission network, and irrigation projects, before concluding that the Merowe Dam represents a harsh lesson in development failure. Yet this conclusion does not withstand the facts.
If the loans are the root of the crisis, then what is the connection between financing agreements concluded more than two decades ago and a fire that occurred during a war targeting the country’s infrastructure? And if financing is the problem, why has the dam remained the country’s largest source of electricity throughout these years? The jurisprudential debate surrounding the financing was settled at the time within the competent institutions, whereas the current electricity crisis is the result of a war that has disrupted power generation stations and targeted substations and transmission lines. There is no causal relationship between the two.
The article then discusses turbine operation, concluding that the failure to operate all turbines indicates a gap between potential and actual performance. This interpretation also lacks technical accuracy, because operating all turbines in hydroelectric dams is not the standard practice. It depends on water levels, reservoir management, electricity demand, and scheduled maintenance programs. Therefore, operating four, six, or eight turbines under certain conditions does not indicate a flaw in the project; rather, it reflects the normal engineering practices of hydroelectric power generation.
Even more striking is the claim that the Merowe Dam was built without upgrading the transmission network, leaving electricity trapped at the production site. This claim can easily be verified. The project included the construction of the largest electricity transmission network in Sudan’s history, extending over 1,745 kilometers, connecting the generating station to seven major substations through 500 kV and 220 kV transmission lines reaching Khartoum, Atbara, Port Sudan, Al-Dabbah, Dongola, and Wadi Halfa. Had this network not been built alongside the project, electricity generated by the Merowe Dam would never have reached most of Sudan’s states.
The same applies to the author’s discussion of irrigation and agricultural development projects. Their delay does not mean that the Merowe Dam failed. Their studies were completed within an integrated development vision, particularly the Merowe Irrigation Project. However, the political changes after 2019 and the dismantling of the Dams Implementation Unit halted a development process before its completion. Holding the dam responsible for the consequences of subsequent political decisions confuses the development project itself with the environment that prevented the completion of its objectives.
Moreover, the philosophy of the project extended beyond electricity generation. It included reducing generation costs, expanding agricultural land, stimulating industrial activity, improving river navigation, mitigating flood risks, and establishing infrastructure that included roads, bridges, railways, an airport, and a hospital, all within a comprehensive development vision that viewed energy as the engine for restructuring the national economy.
More importantly, the article ignores a reality imposed by the war. With most thermal power generation facilities out of service, the hydropower system developed by the Dams Implementation Unit has become the backbone of Sudan’s electricity supply. Merowe Dam (1,250 MW), the Roseires Dam Heightening Project (approximately 400 MW), and the Upper Atbara and Setit Project (approximately 320–400 MW) have demonstrated that these projects were not liabilities but rather essential pillars of the resilience of the energy sector—a fact revealed by the war before it was documented by research papers and publications of the Ministry of Energy.
Here lies the greatest paradox. The recent fire cited in the article as evidence of the failure of the Merowe Dam is, in fact, the strongest evidence of its strategic success. A project whose disruption of one of its main transmission lines affects electricity and water supplies across vast areas of the country is not a marginal project. It has become part of the state’s vital infrastructure. Crises do not reveal the weakness of strategic assets; they reveal the extent of dependence upon them.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the article is that it deliberately redirects responsibility from operational management to the nature of the facility itself, in an attempt to divert attention away from those targeting the country’s infrastructure, at a time when investigations into the recent fire are still ongoing. Instead of searching for the perpetrators and protecting national assets, the discussion shifts toward questioning the project itself, creating a narrative that confuses public opinion and may influence the course of accountability by shifting the focus of accusation from the aggressor to the victim, and from the targeting of the facility to its very existence and value.
It is no coincidence that the engineers and consultants who supervised the implementation of the project affirm that the Merowe Dam established an advanced Sudanese school of engineering and paved the way for the Roseires Dam Heightening Project and the Upper Atbara and Setit Project. Engineer Ahmed Abdullah also documented in his book on the project the various stages of design, implementation, quality control, and safety, making the Merowe Dam a comprehensive national experience in capacity building rather than merely an electricity generation facility.
According to #The_Face_of_Truth, the battle facing nations today is not limited to rebuilding what war has destroyed; it also extends to protecting public awareness from attempts to reinterpret the country’s developmental history through fragmented narratives. Reducing the Merowe Dam—one of the state’s most important strategic projects—to a symbol of failure while ignoring its role in sustaining the electricity system is not so much an objective critique as it is a blow to confidence in the value of development. Major projects are evaluated by their impact, not by their political associations. Reality has demonstrated that the partial loss of this project revealed its value rather than its weakness. Therefore, protecting national achievements from distortion is not a defense of a political experience, but a defense of the right of future generations to read their history with fairness and awareness.
Wishing you continued good health and well-being.
Wednesday, August 5, 2026
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