Mozambique: 16 ‘fake engineers’ reported to Public Prosecutor’s Office

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Mozambique: 16 ‘fake engineers’ reported to Public Prosecutor’s Office

11:06 CAT | 26 May 2023

Photo: O País

Sixteen files concerning an equal number of people who have allegedly used false documents to identify themselves as engineers have been forwarded to Mozambique’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR).

The statutes of the Order of Engineers define an engineer as the holder of a degree or legal equivalent, in an engineering course and who is registered with the Order of Engineers as an effective member. However, according to the chairman of the Order of Engineers, Feliciano Dias, some individuals forge educational certificates, banknotes and professional declarations for various purposes, one of which is to masquerade as qualified engineers.

Some of these individuals have allegedly been identified. “We have already delivered to the Attorney General’s Office 16 files referring to counterfeit engineers, and the Attorney General’s Office is investigating. Six weeks ago, we were called to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and he said that he is finding people,” Dias explained.

From the 9th to the 13th of July, Mozambique will host the first Forum of Engineers of the six Portuguese-speaking countries of Africa (PALOPs) – Angola, Cabo Verde, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe – where a memorandum of understanding concerning mutual recognition of engineers in member countries will be signed between engineers’ orders.

“What we want is the mutual recognition of engineering in our countries, because, in general, we have the same study base, which is Portuguese engineering,” Feliciano Dias explained. “So, we want a Cape Verdean engineer to be able to work in Mozambique, a Mozambican engineer in São Tomé and Príncipe, and either of them to be able to work in Cape Verde or Guinea-Bissau. If there is mutual professional recognition, we do not have to go through several stages of recognition. Recognition becomes tacit because he [the engineer] is a member of the Order of Engineers of Mozambique or of another Order [in the PALOs].”

At the press conference, the authentic documents issued by the Order for trainee engineers and those already qualified, which contain security elements such as the QR code, were presented.

The Chairman of the Order of Engineers further told the newspaper O Pais that he supports the idea of constructing buildings on the Polana Caniço barriers to prevent erosion, as advanced last week by Maputo municipality.

Source: O País