Africa-Press – Mozambique. Manuel Tome, a former general secretary of Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party, died in Maputo on Monday in Maputo, after a long illness.
Tome, who was born in the central city of Chimoio in 1952, was a journalist by profession. In the late 1970s, he became deputy news editor, and then chief news editor of the county’s main daily paper “Noticas”, and then general director of Radio Mozambique.
In 1986, he was elected general secretary of the National Organisation of Journalists (ONJ), the precursor to today’s National Union of Journalists (SNJ). He held this post until 1991. In representation of the ONJ, he was elected Deputy President and then President of the International Organisation of Journalists.
He as an active member of Frelimo, and was repeatedly elected on the Frelimo ticket to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. He became the head of the Frelimo parliamentary group, and sat on the Assembly’s governing board, its Standing Commission.
He was General Secretary of Frelimo from 1995 to 2002, and at the time of his death, he was a member of the Frelimo Central Committee and of its Political Commission.
Tome also sat for several years on the board of directors of Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam on the Zambezi river, in the western province of Tete.
Tome was also a prominent musician, and a sports enthusiast, becoming the President of the Mozambican Swimming Federation.
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