Search Results for: budget

Angola’s Greatest Work of Fiction: The Budget

A much-lauded cartoon by Angola’s premier pictorial satirist Sérgio Piçarra recently depicted the state of the country’s economy, thanks to José Eduardo dos Santos, the country’s President for the past 37 years. In his depiction, Angola has a ‘Real Economy’, and a ‘Virtual Economy’, but there is an even third one, the ‘Fictitious Economy’. It’s a reflection of a truth: every year the Angolan state budget (Orçamento Geral de Estado) is a mixture of the actual (real), anticipated (virtual) and the ‘only on paper’ (fictitious) spending for the year ahead. Now insiders say the 2017 Budget strays even further from reality than usual. One example: Angola expects to spend more than 1.7 billion kwanzas (US $6.5 million) on maintenance of the memorial to Agostinho Neto, the country’s first post-independence president. The Soviet Union undertook the initial construction of the memorial. However, with the collapse of the USSR, the construction remained […]

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The 2013 Budget Trickery and the Looting in the TB Sanatorium

As the current economic crisis in Angola has deepened, citizens are finally beginning to ask how tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues have been spent. In its report on the 2013 state budget spending, the Court of Accounts sheds light on how many members of the government engaged in squandering and pilfering  public funds. The court carried out fact-finding visits to the Ministries of Construction, Health, Education, Transport, Energy and Water, as well as Urbanisation and Housing. The report will be discussed by the National Assembly next June, but Maka Angola is providing an exclusive preview of some of the disturbing findings. At the top of the list is the Construction Ministry, which entered into contracts to the tune of US $2 billion without “prior authorisation from the CA [Court of Accounts], and which were not submitted to prior oversight” as required by law. The CA highlights the […]

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A Record Budget for the Presidency, the Military and the Spooks

Angola’s 2013 budget has been hailed by government propaganda as its greatest ever, owing to how much is being spent on social sectors and in the fight against poverty. The State Budget Bill, approved by the National Assembly on January 15, is expected to become law on February 14. Spending this year is up some 50 percent from 2012, taking the overall budget to a record high of AKZ 6.6 trillion (around US $ 69 billion). In fact, 33.5 percent, over one third of the budget, is allocated for the “social sector,” which includes health, education, housing, environment, and social protection.  It is also true that more is being spent on the “social sector” than ever before. But the headline numbers are misleading. Moreover, focusing on the figures fails to notice that, in essence, the State Budget Bill legalizes in fact presidential unaccountability in the management of the public resources. […]

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All the President’s Friends: Who Audits Angola’s Chief Auditor?

Yet more evidence has reached Maka Angola that the Angolan President’s vow to end corruption has continued to falter. Maka has already revealed at length how Exalgina Gambôa, the head of the Court of Accounts of Angola’s national audit office, had embezzled four million dollars from the court’s organizational budget to purchase luxury furnishings for her home. New information has come to light showing that the court cannot afford to send its accountants around the country to audit government spending in the provinces because their travel budget was spent on luxury flights for the three Gambôa offspring. President João Lourenço’s promise to tackle Angola’s kleptocratic culture of corruption has stuttered for a while. His campaign has so far failed not just on account of his narrow focus on the fortunes of his predecessor’s children but due to his inability to call out officials close to the current leadership for their […]

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Justice Capture in Angola

President Lourenço has weaponized the judicial system to mete out political retribution against his personal enemies, principally his predecessor’s family members and closest associates. The unequal application of justice gives every appearance of protection for some of the most notoriously corrupt public officials, in exchange for their allegiance. A few days ago, Angola’s Criminal Investigation Service arrested a young man, Flávio Caiongo, over a TikTok video. His crime? Calling our President Lourenço a “thief”. His TikTok was critical of the poor rule that plagues Angola, and has left so many of my fellow Angolans hungry. As I stand here, the authorities are still hunting down the other two people who took part in it. It’s ironic. Twenty-three years ago, Angola’s then President, José Eduardo dos Santos, put me in jail for calling his régime “corrupt”. When President Lourenço succeeded him in 2017, he promised change: an end to kleptocracy, respect […]

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Angola Elections 2022: Education

Angola does not have enough schools or teachers to meet the needs of a population growing by a million each year. Experts theorize (and parents instinctively understand) that education is key to social progress and it’s one of the key issues facing the political parties contesting this election: how to deliver their promise of free and universal education to university level. Both the governing MPLA and its main rival, UNITA, have promised to boost spending but they don’t go into detail in their published programmes and campaign speeches. Maka Angola has some suggestions. Education is one of the most visible indicators of social progress and the benefits are far-reaching. Education provides individuals with intellectual and practical skills that make them productive. It enhances living conditions by fostering social equity and justice. It develops human talent and civic virtues. Angola has experimented with different teaching models by default since achieving independence […]

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Angolan Elections 2022: What about the Economy?

Angola will hold a general election on August 24th to elect both the country’s President and its parliament, the National Assembly. In all there are eight parties contesting the election, but no-one has any doubt that only one of them, the main opposition party UNITA, can seriously challenge the MPLA, which has ruled Angola since Independence from Portugal in November 1975. The ballot paper offers voters a choice out of all eight parties, in an order determined by lottery, and each party has a list of candidates, the first on the list being their candidate for the Presidency. PART ONE: AN OVERVIEW Angola’s President, João Lourenço, and his main rival for the presidency, Adalberto Costa Júnior of UNITA, are on the campaign trail, attending rallies in each of the country’s 18 provinces. UNITA is hoping it can capitalize on public discontent by taking votes away from the MPLA, which has […]

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Angolan Elections 2022: Indifferent Reception for President Lourenço in Malanje

Who writes the campaign speeches for the Angolan President? A statistician? For a couple of hours on Wednesday, João Lourenço stupefied would-be MPLA supporters at a campaign rally in Malanje with a stuttering list of his government’s ‘achievements’ over the past five years, doing nothing to inspire confidence in MPLA’s ability to deliver on their promise of a better future. Suffice to say, the speech was not well received by those in attendance. As the speech dragged on the frustration of those in attendance, particularly the young people, became all too clear. Members of the audience chatted, flittered, and giggled throughout, disregarding what was being said by the President. It was impossible to ignore the contempt demonstrated by the younger members of the audience, a clear signal that the MPLA was an antiquated out-of-touch party quickly losing its once uncontested grip on a pivotal demographic. At times the President would […]

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Audit Court in Leadership Crisis

Following Maka Angola’s report on Audit Court President Exalgina Gambôa’s US$4 million dollar spend on home décor for her government-gifted US$4 million dollar private residence, evidence has emerged of anger and disbelief amid the Audit Court Plenary Advisory Judges who were rushed into approving, without proper scrutiny, the Court’s annual accounts.  The whole process appears to have been crafted to obscure evidence that without due authorization Exalgina Gambôa had far exceeded the amounts for magisterial perquisites permitted by law, and in so doing had committed a crime and brought the Audit Court into disrepute. A scathing letter from Elisa Rangel Nunes, President of the Second Chamber of the Audit Court, dated June 22nd, expresses her dismay that an institution, “defined in the Angolan Constitution as the body that sits at the apex of supervision and control of public spending” has been irredeemably tarnished by its most senior official whose corrupt […]

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Audit Court Splashes Millions on Luxury for Boss

How did the President of Angola’s Court of Auditors manage to afford a home worth almost eight million US dollars? Allegedly by getting the State to pick up the bill. Whistle-blowers say Exalgina Gambôa should have the decency to step down while the Office of the Attorney-General of the Republic conducts a criminal investigation. This latest scandal makes a mockery of the Angolan government’s promise to fight corruption: it shows how the highest-ranking public officials – even those appointed to uphold the law – can abuse it with impunity by making use of their rank and privilege to divert state funds for private ends while still avoiding investigation and prosecution for corruption.For too many years Angola’s predatory political class has operated on the assumption that prestige positions in public service grants them the right to live in unparalleled luxury with all expenses charged to the state. The expectation of privileges […]

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