ISTANBUL

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Tuesday that the country did not receive “a single penny” from any foreign government to finance the construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, rejecting claims by US President Donald Trump that Washington funded the project.

Addressing the House of Peoples’ Representatives, Abiy said the dam was built solely with Ethiopia’s own resources, including years of public fundraising campaigns.

The dam, built on the Blue Nile near the Sudan border, is Africa’s largest hydropower project and has been a source of tension with downstream Egypt and Sudan, which have raised concerns about its impact on water flows.

Abiy also said Ethiopia is finalizing another major hydropower project on the Omo River with an installed capacity of 2,200 megawatts and expected annual production of 6,460 gigawatt-hours.

Speaking at the White House in late January, Trump questioned why the US would have financed the dam, a claim Ethiopian officials have repeatedly rejected.

“I said, how did you let that happen? Why would we have done that? We financed it. This country -- what a terrible thing,” Trump said during a press conference.

In a letter to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Trump also proposed renewed negotiations over the dam.

According to reports, the letter, which was also shared with regional leaders, offered to restart mediation efforts aimed at resolving long-running disputes over Nile water sharing.