Background
He was born on :April 18, 1917 in Mozambique.
He was born on :April 18, 1917 in Mozambique.
He was graduated in civil engineering in 1940.
From 1943 to 1947 he worked for the Metal Trade Control Committee in charge of imports and exports. From 1947 to 1951 he served in Rome with the Cotton Trade Control Committee. His first appointment in Mozambique in 1951 was as director of a cotton factory at Vila Pery, 100 miles west of Beira. In 1954 he joined the Public Works Department and was made director of the north-western district of Tete.
He moved to South-East Asia in 1957 as director of research and construction for the port of Dili in Timor. In 1959 he was transferred to Goa, returning before the Indian take-over in December 1961. Back in Lisbon he was appointed Director of Road Transport at the Ministry of Overseas Provinces in June 1969 and rose later that year to be Deputy Director-General of Public Works and Transport, which took him to Cape Verde. In 1971 on his appointment to the Mozambique administration he made roads his priority and completed links between Biera and Tete and Lourenco Marques and Biera by the end of 1972, He drew up a £150 million programmme for 6,000 miles of paved roads to be built by 1979.
Civil engineer with experience of many operations in Portuguese territories— cotton factory director in Mozambique, port authority on the island of Timor, and chairman of development projects on Cape Verde Islands. A technocrat more interested in economic results than in planning political devolution, he first went to Mozambique in 1951. In government his main aim has been to open up the hinterland with new roads.