Engineers from Portuguese-speaking African countries (PALOP) are looking for an instrument that will allow them to practice their profession, as they are currently not allowed to practice within member countries, except in the case of bilateral agreements..

Speaking at the opening of the 1st PALOP Engineers' Forum, the Minister of Industry and Trade, Silvino Moreno, said that the free mobility of PALOP engineers is crucial for the exercise of these professionals in the service of the nation.

The 1st PALOP Engineers' Forum will take place from July 10 to 13 in Maputo under the slogan "For the Mobility of Engineers in the PALOP Area".

"The mobility of engineering professionals in our space is of paramount importance from the perspective of sharing skills, experiences and good practices in the exercise of engineering in order to serve our nations and peoples well," said Silvino Moreno.

Quoted by AIM, the Minister for Industry and Trade added that, "our countries need the ingenuity of our professional engineers without the ties of nationality. We need to share and transfer engineering know-how between us and bring the desired development solutions".

For his part, the vice-president of the Order of Engineers of Mozambique (OrdEM), Alberto Tsamba, said that the aim of the instrument was to allow engineers to work in the PALOP countries by simply carrying a certificate from one of the countries in the community.

"In each country we have an organization that regulates the practice of engineering and you can only do engineering in each of these countries when you are certified by this entity. The idea is that once [the engineer] has been certified in one of the countries, he can freely practice engineering in another country by going through a kind of local registration without having to start the process from scratch and be admitted by the other country's association," he explained.

The instrument is seen as a solution for these professionals, since they can currently only practise their profession through bilateral agreements, something that already happens between Mozambique, Angola and Portugal.

The aim of the initiative is to expand within the organization much more space for mobility, interaction, cooperation and the exchange of capacity and experience between Portuguese-speaking African countries.

In fact, according to Tsamba, the countries of the community have already agreed on the ideal way to implement the instrument.

"The most important thing is the movement of engineers to practice engineering in any of these countries without experiencing constraints," he stressed.