The newly appointed Ethiopia’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Uganda, H.E. Etsegenet Bezabih Yimenu, arrived in the country on Tuesday.
She replaces former Ambassador H.E. Alemtsehay Meseret, who ended her diplomatic tour of duty to Uganda in December last year after four years of service.
Speaking during the event organised to welcome her by the Ethiopian Embassy in Uganda, H.E. Etsegenet expressed pleasure about her appointment, before pledging to further the existing good relations between Uganda and Ethiopia.
She now awaits to present her letters of credence to President Yoweri Museveni.
“I am so happy to be here. I want to thank my President, H.E Sahle-Work Zewde, for believing in me and appointing me Ethiopia’s Ambassador to Uganda. I also thank the Prime Minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed Ali, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister for believing in me,” H.E. Etsegenet said on Tuesday.
“Having served for a long time at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this is a promotion and I am excited about it. I am so happy and glad to be in this beautiful country. As you are already aware that our two countries have longstanding good relations, I promise to do my best to further strengthen them,” she added.
According to the Ambassador, her focus will among others include using the people-to-people approach in order to further cooperation.
“I will not only focus on government-to-government, but also people-to-people. We will not only share about economy and politics, but also history and culture. I want to thank the staff of the Ethiopian Embassy, and Community in Uganda for the work well done and I hope we will continue doing so as a family,” said Ambassador Etsegenet.
Plus News Journalist, Kungu Al-mahadi Adam, who was last year recognized for his outstanding contributions and solidarity with Ethiopia and its people at a critical time when Addis Ababa was faced with a disinformation campaign by the international media on Tigray conflict, welcomed Ambassador Etsegenet and pledged, in the spirit of Pan-Africanism, to continue supporting Ethiopians at all fronts.
“When Ethiopia is hurt, the rest of the countries in Africa are hurt too, and so it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure that Ethiopia is secure. It is in that spirit that I chose to rise in defense of the ‘Land of Origins’ whenever an attack is launched on it,” Kungu said.
He thanks the leadership of Ethiopia for always rooting for peace, and African solutions to African problems, noting that the agreement signed to ceasefire in the North is gone and its implementation is ongoing. He said what Ethiopia now needs is to be supported by the rest of Africa to achieve permanent peace.
Kungu used the opportunity to further call-on Egypt not to frustrate the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a $5-billion mega-power plant, entirely funded by the Ethiopia and its people.
The dam, whose construction is now 90% complete, when fully done, will produce more than 5,000 megawatts of electricity and become Africa’s largest hydroelectric power generator and the world’s seventh-largest dam.
“Egypt ought to appreciate that all the Nile riparian countries need to use this shared water body, under the principle of reasonable and equitable exploitation of the Nile water, to benefit its nationals. A lot has changed – the colonial agreements that give Egypt exclusive powers on the Nile have become obsolete,” Kungu said.
Sir Simon Muyanga Lutaaya, a senior journalist with BaBa Television in Kampala, heaped praise on the Ethiopian community in Uganda for being accomodative, and not interfering with local politics and other internal affairs of the Uganda.
Ambassador Etsegenet previously served as Director General of Women’s, Children and Youth Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Addis Ababa.
Uganda and Ethiopia have enjoyed being strategic partners for long cementing this relationship by signing strategic partnership agreements and Memoranda of Understandings (twenty four) in Water, Defense, Tourism, Education and Security.
The agreements have further reinforced and mounted the two countries stands on common regional affairs such as signing of the CFA.