An Obituary to the Engineers El Rashid Sid Ahmed and Mohamed AliKubawi By Professor M.E. Goreish

08:05 PM Jan, 27 2016

Sudanese Online
بروفيسور محمد الرشيد قريش-
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Twenty Years After their Passing Away:

By Professor M.E. Goreish

EXPERT Systems Development Center
For Water Resources, Transport,
Energy and Manufacturing Engineering


Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed, who passed away in September 1993 and Mohamed All Kubawi whose life also ended nearly two months later, had much in common: They had been very close friends and associates throughout their careers. The two former deputies to the Permanent Under—Secretary of the Ministry of Irrigation (MOI) were known for their exemplary diligence, integrity and devotion to public work, and both shared that modes attribute of keenly shunning away from all forms of publicity. As accomplished engineers, their names have often been acknowledged together, as far back as the early fifties, when Ian Matthews, in his paper on the Goneid Scheme (1), commended their undertaking of the detailed design work of canalization for that precursory pump scheme. Other separate citations of the two men also have appeared in numerous feasibility studies and irrigation reports, notablely among them is the Report on the Nile Valley Plan in which its authors (Mr. H. Morrice and Mr. N. Allan) acknowledged the assistance of Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed, among other Ministry of Irrigation staff.
An axiomatic measure of the professional contributions of these two men can be found in the fact that their names have been invariably associated with nearly all the irrigation and river control works in the Sudan for nearly 60 years, half of which were spent in public service, where the two men �� like most of their contemporary irrigation engineers �� launched their careers in the Gezjra fields, Industriously carrying out the then traditional duties of irrigation engineers, of receiving water requests and diligently striving to ensure close indenting and to keeping the canals�� cross—sections silt- and weed-free and the banks breach—free. After this “baptism of fire�� Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed then moved to the Eastern Province (Willaya) for the even more rigorous and challenging task of Canal and bank design in the Gash and Toker Deltas and the associated design and execution of stream—training and flood damage abatement schemes, while Mohamed Ali Kubawi remained behind in Gezira.
The formation of the Sudan Gezira Board in 1950 - as a partnership between the Government, the tenants and the two Concession Companies (the Sudan Plantation Syndicate and the Kassala Company) and the�� commencing of the Sudanization program for field staff
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(1) Mathew , I. “The Canals of the Gezira Canalization Scheme and the Design of the Goneid Pump Scheme in the Sudan��. Paper No. 6100, Proc. Of the Instn. Civ. Eng., (1955)
has found this avant-garde generation of seasoned engineers well-posted, as Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed had already returned to Gezira and the two men �� together with the
handful of senior Sudanese engineers -- would swiftly move up the administrative ranks to shoulder higher responsibilities in the MOI Department of Wad Medani. Subsequently, Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed would move to Khartoum to progressively hold senior posts as the Technical Secretary to the Minister, and then the Technical Advisor, and Deputy
Permanent Under-Secretary to MOl, while concurrently serving as a key member of the Nile Waters Negotiating team, and later Deputy Chairman of the Nile Water Permanent Joint Commission, until his retirement in 1964, as well as actively taking part in various regional and international irrigation meetings, including those of the International Commission on Irrigation Drainage (ICID) and the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD). And it is in his capacity as Technical Secretary and, later, Technical Advisor, that Mohamed El Rashid Sid Ahmed carried out one of his most crucial assignments by serving as a linchpin to the planning, design and execution of all the irrigation projects constructed by MOI in the decade between 1954 and 1964 (such a Roseires and Khashm El Girba Dams and the Managil Extension). It is also in this capacity that he began a long and productive association - with the Roseires Dam Consulting Engineers - Sir Alexander Gibb and Partners, and with Sir M. MacDonald and Partners in the Rahad Project-Guneid Extension and Khashm El Girba Project extension, for whom he has carried out layout plans, design and estimates for these projects, for purposes of international loan applications.
¬ Perhaps the most remarkable thing here is that these pioneering Sudanese engineers not only refined and sharpened their craft through close association with the vanguard Corps of British irrigation engineers (such as W. M. Williams, A.E. Griffin and Sir Claude Inglis, as well as with the rear-guard band of R. J. Smith, Ian Matthews, H. Morrice and W. Allan) but they were able to appreciably contribute to the laying down of a well-founded and multitier structure for sound engineering practices in planning, design and execution of irrigation works which precluded the creation of an “expertise vacuum�� (as a result of the abrupt departure of British engineers), ,and hence permitted an almost flawless transfer of responsibilities to the Sudanese counterparts. Thus not only that the presumed administrative and technical collapse—or programme contractions��-- were averted but, admirably enough, MOl was able - in the decade that followed - to execute its most outstanding and enterprising programme of irrigation work to date ( i.e. not only Irrigation Material “works�� i.e. the Means of Water Conveyance from Source to fields, but also Methods of Water Distribution, Methods of Canal Works Administration, Methods of Canal System Operation After Construction) - a telling testimony to the robustness of the infrastructural base previously founded.


All this was accomplished while this group of pioneering engineers were painstakingly nurturing the development of the then promising young cadres of Sudanese engineers, who were later to pick up the banner and, in turn, carry on these responsibilities throughout the seventies and the eighties.
It is however the canalization work of these two forerunner engineers
that merits here a closer look: In particular their engineering contribu tions in the Government Gravity Schemes included, inter-alia the canali- zation layout and design of the Gezira North West Extension (1944 - 1949) and the Managil Extension (1952 �� 58), the Canalization layout for Khashm El Girba (1960 �� 63), the preliminary layout and cost estimates for Khashm El Girba (1966), the preliminary layout for Hawata and Rahad (1966).
When it was designed for irrigation by gravity from Roseiris reservoir - as well as the design and cost estimates for the alternative watering of the Geneid Scheme from the Rahad Scheme. In the Government Pump Scheme, their joint work included the canalization design for Fatissa and Rashaba pump schemes, as well as the canalization layout design for Mellut scheme. In the private pump schema, their work included the canalization, design and execution of most Blue Nile, Main Nile and White Nile private schemes. In addition, Mohamed El Rashid’s work included the complete design of Seleit scheme irrigation and drainage systems.
This distinguished and metritorious record can be put succinctly in terms of its outstanding quality and sheer magnitude: Those two engineers - together with their third partner, Salih El Obeid, and of course their other capable assistants—are wholly or partially responsible for the nearly fault �� free canalization layout and design, or the preliminary layout and appraisal of 3,083,360 feddans in Government gravity schemes, 29,898 feddarls in Government pump schemes, in addition to 320,145 feddans of private pump schemes, wholly canalized, designed, estimated and executed under their instructinns (including design of pump houses, discharge basins, and other necessary engineering structures). These figures do not include the Seleit (22,000 feddans), nor the countless small private pump schemes of areas le than 1000 feddans, nor an additional 74,000 feddans which were designed by the three partners, but not executed. In short, the three partners - among themselves and their able support staff - are wholly or partly responsible for the canalization layout and design, or preliminary layout, of over 3.5 million feddans This sheer magnitude is itself, probably a record not surpassed by any tripartite group of men anywhere in the world, but even more impressive is the fact that non these projects had been tainted with the imputation of faulty canal designs, or constructions, or displayed impro - perly..designed canal structures, or subsequently revealed inadequate canal (or outlets) discharge capacities, nor later suffer any other serious opera- tional inadequancies. Yet today none of this monumental engineering work carries.

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