Angola’s Sovereign Fund Pays US $100 Million to a Shell Company

On 22 January 2015, Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (FSDEA) transferred the sum of 9 948 750 000 kwanzas (equivalent at the time to US$100 million) to the company Kijinga S.A. This company is nothing more than a shell company set up as a front for shady transactions by Banco Kwanza Invest (BKI), a bank created by the 36-year-old José Filomeno dos Santos “Zenú”, the current chair of the FSDEA and the son of the President of the Republic. Kijinga S.A. shares an office with BKI at 150 Avenida Comandante Jika, next to the Maternity Hospital in Luanda. This address has only one business door, which opens into a small waiting room where there is a reception area and two chairs for visitors. One of these chairs is usually occupied by a security guard, in addition to the guard on duty outside the door. The windows are darkened glass, which does […]

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Freedom of Expression: a Crime against the State Security in Angola

In the oil-rich enclave of Cabinda, in the northernmost part of Angola, three individuals share a prison cell, since March 14, charged with crimes against the state security and sedition, for a protest against bad governance and human rights abuses, which never took place.  Their arrests and the charges leveled against them,  are what illustrate the sophistication of the authoritarian rule in Angola. Members of the state security arrested Marcos Mavungo, a university lecturer and oil worker for Chevron, as soon as he exited the Catholic Church where he attended morning mass at 7h00. He was, in fact, the lead proponent of the protest.  The local government swiftly prohibited holding the protest the moment it was notified by the organizers several days before. The demonstration was supposed to be held in the afternoon but the ban, and the massive deployment of police officers in the small urban district of Cabinda […]

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