When Angola’s General Tax Administration (AGT) announced a billion kwanza (US$1.2 million) tender for its communications plan on 15 November 2023, one of the eventual bidders had already seen the tender documents, proposed changes to the requirements and received the final version from the tax authority itself two days before publication. In Pressionante Kianda won. Messages, drafts and successive versions of the documents show that the bidder did more than compete. It helped shape the tender before it was opened to the public.

Nearly five months before the notice was published, Carla Marisa Castelo Trindade Martins told the shareholders that “everything is in place for us to win the tender”. The statement appears in her own written account of a meeting with José Vieira Nuno Leiria (main photo), then chairman of AGT’s board. President João Lourenço underscored his confidence in Leiria by swearing him in on 10 September 2026 as Angola’s state secretary for tax affairs.

Ties That Predated the Tender

In Pressionante Kianda — Prestação de Serviços, Lda. was incorporated in Luanda on 7 June 2023 with share capital of 100,000 kwanzas. Two Portuguese companies owned by Mário João Zimas Trindade Martins — In Pressionante, Unipessoal, Lda. and In Pressionante 2 Win, Lda. — together held 70 per cent of the equity. Salvador Manuel Pascoal held 20 per cent and João António Diogo dos Santos held 10 per cent.

Carla Trindade, Mário Martins’s wife, co-ordinated preparation of the bid. She teaches at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, where she directs postgraduate courses on tax matters. José Leiria completed a master’s degree in tax law at the university and was one of her students. Those personal and professional ties predated the tender.

Separately, Trindade holds a one-year, 370 million kwanzas contract to advise AGT on the preparation of tax-offence case files. Signed by Leiria and Trindade on 22 June 2026, the contract is the subject of another Maka Angola investigation. That inquiry also examines the circumstances in which the Portuguese national obtained Angolan nationality in 2024, despite never having lived in Angola and having used an address where she did not reside.

Records reviewed by Maka Angola show that Trindade joined In Pressionante Kianda as a full-time adviser on 1 January 2024. The dossier contained no work visa issued in her name. She obtained an Angolan identity card on 24 April that year.

In correspondence sent to Portuguese tax authorities on 23 June 2026, Trindade stated that she also “provides consultancy services to the Government of the Republic of Angola”. She used her position at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa and her university email account to advocate on behalf of Angolan institutions.

The “1M” Lunch

According to the account Trindade gave the shareholders in writing, she and her husband hosted Leiria at their Lisbon home on 25 June 2023, from 2pm until 7.30pm. She described the meeting as “very” positive and reported that AGT’s chairman had discussed a future communications contract and the possibility of managing foreign-exchange constraints through a consortium with the couple’s Portuguese company.

By the end of the meeting, Trindade was already referring to the prospective contract as “1M”, apparently meaning one billion. She wrote: “Everything is in place for us to win the tender.” AGT would not announce it for almost five months.

According to another message from Trindade, Bráulio Assis visited the couple’s home and company premises in Portugal the following day, 26 June. Assis headed AGT’s Communications and Taxpayer Assistance Office and would later chair the tender evaluation committee. Trindade summarised the visit for the shareholders: “Bráulio Assis was here at the house today to socialise (…) Then he went to the company (…) and loved it.”

On 27 June, Trindade told Elisa Leiria, the AGT chairman’s wife, that her employment by In Pressionante 2 Win — her husband’s company and a shareholder in In Pressionante Kianda — had been finalised and reported to Portugal’s social security authorities. “On 1 July 2023, you are officially an employee,” she wrote. Shortly before, on 3 May, finance minister Vera Daves had granted Elisa Leiria, then a senior tax officer at AGT, six months’ leave, which was later extended. In July 2024, the minister reassigned her to the State Assets Directorate.

Tender Documents Were Circulating by September

The prospective bidder did not wait for the process to open before learning its rules. On 7 September 2023, more than two months before publication of the notice, Trindade sent the terms of reference and deliverables schedule to Salvador Pascoal, the Angolan shareholder and her former student at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. On 28 September, she shared amended versions of the documents and wrote: “So you understand what may be coming our way.”

The dossier reviewed by Maka Angola contains messages exchanged in the company group, emails, successive versions of the tender documents, drafts, social security records and contracts. The documents cited, quoted or used in this article were provided voluntarily, without coercion, improper inducement or expectation of benefit. The information was obtained through interactions and conversations between the parties during a legitimate exchange of information and views.

From 300 million to 15 million kwanzas

On 10 October 2023, more than a month before the notice was published, Trindade asked Leiria to remove or amend point 9 of the tender documents, which concerned bidders’ financial and technical capacity, according to messages reviewed by Maka Angola.

The initial version required bidders to show an average operating result of more than300 million kwanzas over the previous three financial years. They also had to demonstrate at least two previous assignments providing communications services related to tax and customs matters, in Angola or abroad, and disclose their principal clients, contract values and letters of reference.

Trindade wrote that Kianda stood no chance of winning if the wording remained unchanged: “We have to get rid of point 9.” The messages attribute the replies “There is room to adjust it” and “Leave it with me” to AGT’s chairman. Trindade responded with a heart symbol.

The following day, she asked Assis whether there had been “pressure from above”. A reply attributed to him in the messages states that this had not been necessary and that the administrative services department had agreed to remove the obstacles. In an internal communication forwarded to Trindade, Assis argued that not even Angola’s strongest communications company could meet the requirements as originally drafted.

Successive versions of the tender documents show what changed. The financial threshold fell from Kz300m to Kz15m. The minimum of two relevant assignments was reduced to one. Requirements that the prospective bidder had itself said it could not meet were thus removed.

On 17 October, after meetings with Assis and AGT’s chairman, Trindade told the shareholders that she had more than 50 pages to review “so the tender can be finalised”. Three days later, she shared alternative wording for the staffing requirement and sought an urgent review “so it can be signed by the chairman”.

An earlier version required bidders to show a permanent staff of at least 20, of whom 20 per cent had experience in communications or marketing. The text sent by Trindade added an alternative: “or, alternatively, demonstrate the capacity to mobilise the resources required to provide the services covered by the contract”. The new wording addressed the shortcoming she had identified.

By 31 October, Trindade had the order authorising the tender, the notice, the tender rules, the specifications, the letter addressed to the National Printing Office, the terms of reference and the deliverables schedule. The official opening was still 15 days away. When Pascoal asked how to complete an annex, she replied: “We were the ones who drafted the tender rules.”

“Game On”

On 11 November, four days before the announcement, Assis again visited the couple in Lisbon, according to Trindade. She wrote to the shareholders: “He is going to decide our contract.”

Two days later, Guilhermina Ivone Tomás Sambongue, an AGT employee who reported to Assis, emailed the final tender documents to Trindade. She shared the email with the shareholders and added: “Game on.” The notice was not published until 15 November.

Restricted Tender with Pre-qualification No 347/UCP/DSAdm/AGT/2023 sought an agency to implement AGT’s communications plan. Kianda won and signed a Kz1bn contract, plus value-added tax, on 22 April 2024. Extensions signed on 29 July 2025 and 27 May 2026, the latter covering the third contractual year, brought the cumulative amount stated in the contract and addenda to Kz3.15bn.

By the time the notice became public, the eventual winner had seen the tender documents, discussed changes to them and received the final version. But early access was only the beginning. In Part II, Maka Angola shows how a company with only two workers listed as having active employment registrations with the National Social Security Institute sought to present 20 staff profiles — and how messages attributed to the chair of the tender evaluation committee appear to show him advising, reassuring and reviewing the bidder’s documents.

Editor’s note. Maka Angola gave José Leiria, Bráulio Assis and Carla Trindade at least 72 hours to respond. By the time this article was finalised, none had sent a response directly to Maka Angola for publication. Their rights of reply and correction remain fully protected under Angolan law.

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