Meet the man at the helm of Mozambique’s newly-created Post-Idai Reconstruction Office

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Meet the man at the helm of Mozambique’s newly-created Post-Idai Reconstruction Office

4:32 CAT | 17 Apr 2019

File photo: Courtesy of Mozefo

Council of Ministers spokeswoman Ana Comoana announced yesterday that Francisco Pereira has been appointed Executive Director of the Post-Cyclone Idai Reconstruction Office, in the wake of the natural disaster in the central region of Mozambique.

Headquartered in Beira, the Post-Cyclone Idai Reconstruction Office was created to direct the recovery and reconstruction process in an efficient, integrated manner, with priority given to restoring basic social services such as roads, energy, water and communications as quickly as possible.

The office’s mission also includes the identification of land for resettlement, as well as the assessment of losses and damages to facilitate the recovery and reconstruction process.

Cyclone Idai caused 603 deaths in Mozambique, and affected close to 1.5 million people.

Francisco Manuel da Conceição Pereira was born on November 20, 1944, in Ilha de Moçambique, where he completed his secondary education until the 9th grade, arriving in Maputo in 1960 to attend years 10 and 11 of high school, now pre-university education.

He completed a technical engineer course in civil engineering and mines in 1965 (1961-1965) in Mozambique, and began his professional activity in 1966 on the Mozambique Railways Company (CFM). From 1969 to 1974 he attended and graduated in Civil Engineering at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon, Portugal.

Post-Independence, Francisco Pereira remained in the public works sector. From 1975 to 1980, he served as the Chairman of the Autonomous Roads Board of Mozambique (later the National Directorate of Roads) and directed the implementation of the Network Development Master Plan Roads and the reorganisation of Road Maintenance Services, and participated in the process of creating state-owned road construction and maintenance companies.

From 1980 and 1988, he served as National Director of Economy and Construction in the Ministry of Construction and Water, with responsibility for the preparation and control of annual and multi-annual construction plans, as well as the management of housing and public buildings.

Between 1988 and 1995,he was consultant coordinator of the housing component of the Maputo and Beira Urban Rehabilitation Project financed by the World Bank.

Since 1994, he has carried out consultancy work in civil engineering studies and projects through Projecta, a company of which he is the majority partner. Projecta has participated in the development of infrastructure master plans for several Mozambican cities.

Pereira has worked as a civil engineer in Portugal, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Angola at various times, and in the 1990s, he took up university teaching posts, first at the Faculty of Architecture and then at ISUTC.
In 1999, he returned to the road sector, first as Deputy Chairman of the National Roads Administration and then in 2004, with the creation of the Roads Fund, as Chairman of the Board of Administration of the Roads Fund, a position he occupied until January 2010, when he was appointed Deputy Minister of Public Works and Housing.

In 2005, Francisco Pereira was elected President of the General Assembly of the Order of Engineers of Mozambique, and re-elected for a second five-year term in 2010.

Source: AIM Moçambique