An account of a conversation with Mahmoud Mansour

Damanhur, Egypt, Sunday evening eight o’clock:

We, Marleen Jekel, Loek Stam and Rene van der Aa, are visiting the headoffice of Beheira Water and Drainage Company.
Our intention is to have a talk with Mahmoud Mansour, director of the water company (drinking-water, drain water and sewage) of Beheira, a province in the Nile delta.

In the office of his secretary are about 5 people walking around. The secretary wants to bring us immediately into the room of Mansour but we see that he is in a meeting and decide that it is more polite to wait until he is ready to receive us.

After 5 minutes the big boss Mansour, comes to pick us up and welcomes us warmly. We take a seat on the chic black leather couch in his spacious boardroom. Coffee and tea are served and in a pleasant conversation the schedule for our mission is being discussed. Loek’s mission is to make crisis management practical, Marleen’s mission is to give feedback on maintenance management and Rene’s mission is to discuss the present state of some purification technique examinations. We also discuss some organizational issues. The past 18 months 15 new drinking-water purification plants have been designed, built and brought into use. Unimaginable! Besides that, some key employees have left the company to work somewhere else to earn more money. This is a big problem for the Egyptian water companies.

During our conversation a lot is going on in the boardroom; continuously people walk in and out to ask for a signature from the director. (The company culture is very hierarchic here and for almost each decision the director has to sign himself). Also  a newly designed sewage-manhole cover of huge weight, which needs to be approved personally by Mansour, is brought in by 4 man.

In the mean time telephone calls come in regularly. Egyptians like loud bell tones and pick up their mobile phone at all times, it does not matter with whom they are talking at that moment. The television is switched on, unfortunately there is no football today. Mansour almost lives in his boardroom. He is 69 years old, still works 6 days per week 10 to 12 hours per day and wants to be able to watch football and the news during the day.

Mahmoud Mansour is a special person, demanding for his employees but also for himself. This is the reason why his company is working much better than many other Egyptian companies. This is a company where the cooperation with World Waternet brings forth lots of good!
 

Marleen Jekel, Loek Stam en René van der Aa