Category: Articles

Editorial Note on Grupo Carrinho

In fulfilment of its legal and ethical obligations, Maka Angola has published Grupo Carrinho’s response to the articles released on its platform on 23 and 24 February 2026. The right of reply and institutional balance have therefore been fully ensured, allowing readers to assess, with equal prominence, the positions presented. We stand by our reporting in its entirety. The articles are the result of documented investigative work conducted in accordance with rigorous journalistic standards and in the exercise of the public’s right to information and scrutiny. Any dispute regarding the facts reported may be pursued through the competent legal forums, as provided by law. Maka Angola will continue to carry out its work independently, calmly, and with a steadfast commitment to accountability.

Read more

Press Release — Carrinho Group’s Right of Reply

PRESS RELEASE PUBLIC CLARIFICATION, RESTORATION OF FACTS AND DEMAND FOR CORRECTION IN THE FACE OF UNSUPPORTED ALLEGATIONS The Carrinho Group hereby issues a formal public clarification and restores the factual truth in response to statements published by the Maka Angola portal in articles entitled “Carrinho: the Silent Concentration of Economic Power” (23 February 2026) and “The Suspicious Connections of the Carrinho Group” (24 February 2026). The articles in question contain extremely serious allegations, including percentages and conclusions presented as facts, based on insinuations, unidentified “sources” and inferences, without any documentary evidence, verifiable methodology or effective rebuttal. The Carrinho Group firmly rejects the attempt to turn suspicion into fact through repetition or association. Furthermore, the publications themselves acknowledge in the text that “there is no evidence” of irregular practices attributable to the Group, but nevertheless insist on conjecture and insinuating constructions. Such an editorial method does not correspond to informed scrutiny; […]

Read more

Angola’s U$61.5 Billion Contracts by Presidential Decree. No Public Tender

In Angola, major public spending decisions are often not announced in televised addresses or debated on the floor of Parliament. They appear instead in the Diário da República — formal presidential decrees, written in technical language, authorizing contracts that can reshape entire sectors of the economy. Between 2017 and today, at least US$61.5 billion has been approved through one such mechanism: simplified procurement. That figure emerges from a review of 476 presidential decrees, drawn from more than 500 examined during President João Lourenço’s two terms in office. It is not a complete accounting of all direct awards issued over eight years. It is a documented sample. Yet even as a partial record, it reveals the scale at which executive discretion has operated. Of the 476 decrees analyzed, beneficiaries could be identified in 273 cases. In the remaining 203 — representing 42.6 percent — no beneficiary is publicly named. Those unidentified […]

Read more

Carrinho: The Sanctions Shadow Behind Angola’s Industrial Showcase

Angola’s most celebrated industrial project was financed in part by a trader later sanctioned by the European Union and the United Kingdom. There is no proof of wrongdoing by Carrinho — but the absence of transparency leaves troubling questions unanswered. After examining how public contracts and sovereign guarantees have concentrated economic power in Angola (see the first part of this dossier), this second investigation looks at the international ties of the Carrinho Group — including partnerships with entities linked to sanctions proceedings in Europe — and the due-diligence and transparency questions that follow. Carrinho’s business relationships with several international entities warrant heightened scrutiny, particularly given the lack of publicly available financial information and the complexity of the corporate structures involved. Confirmed links connect Carrinho to Manty AG, based in Switzerland and led by Maurice Taylor, and to Paramount Energy & Commodities, founded by Dutch trader Niels Troost. Manty AG appears […]

Read more

When Economic Power Becomes Systemic Risk in Angola

Angola’s diversification strategy was designed to reduce dependence on oil and build a competitive, broad-based economy. Instead, a growing body of public records suggests that economic power is becoming increasingly concentrated around a small number of politically connected conglomerates. At the center of this transformation stands the Carrinho Group. Over the past four years, the group has expanded from agro-industry into food importation, military logistics and banking, underwritten by presidential decrees, sovereign guarantees and state-backed financing. The Strategic Food Reserve: Over Half a Billion Dollars Mobilized The Strategic Food Reserve (Reserva Estratégica Alimentar — REA) was launched in 2021 as a national price stabilization and food security mechanism. In its first operational year alone, the Angolan state invested more than $200 million in the program, according to official reporting by the state-owned Rádio Nacional de Angola. Between late 2021 and 2022, President João Lourenço authorized four additional supplementary credit lines […]

Read more

In Angola, Security Laws Turn 11 Seconds into Six Months of Jail

Venâncio Lucungo was arrested on July 23 on charges of “provocation to war.” Six months later, he remains in detention at Calomboloca Penitentiary. No formal indictment has been served on his lawyer. The basis of the arrest: an 11-second excerpt from a public speech. Five days before Angola’s violent crackdown on striking taxi drivers last year, the Criminal Investigation Service detained 50-year-old Venâncio Filipe Ngondo Lucungo under accusations of rebellion, public incitement to crime, public apology of crime and provocation to war. The state-owned Angolan Public Television broadcast an official communiqué stating that Lucungo had encouraged citizens “to take up firearms and bladed weapons to rebel against the government.” The allegation rests on 11 seconds extracted from a speech delivered on July 13, 2025, during a public gathering linked to the inauguration of the main opposition UNITA municipal committee in Luanda. In the widely circulated clip, Lucungo is heard saying: […]

Read more

How Angola Is Using the Law to Manage Hunger and Dissent

Faced with hunger and economic decline, Angola’s government is turning to law as a tool of control — building a quiet architecture of authoritarianism. Authoritarianism rarely arrives with tanks in the streets. More often, it slips in through legal texts, regulatory agencies, and administrative procedures that appear technical, neutral, even modern. Angola is now offering a textbook example of how this happens. When President João Lourenço came to power, he invoked the legacy of Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who argued that political legitimacy rests on a simple foundation: putting food on people’s tables. Economic growth, Deng believed, would do what ideology could not. Angola has followed the opposite path. Living conditions have deteriorated, hunger has spread, and economic opportunity has narrowed. Popular frustration today is not abstract or ideological — it is visceral. It is about food, jobs, and dignity. Instead of addressing these realities, the Angolan government has […]

Read more

Angola Jails One Teen, Kills Another

A teenager killed during Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike and his cousin jailed without charge reveal how police violence, political cover and judicial silence converge. On the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, two teenage cousins left home in different parts of Luanda on ordinary errands. One would not return alive. The other has spent more than six months in prison without charge. José Ngola was 14 years old. Benvindo Ernesto João Zanga was 17. Their stories reveal not an isolated tragedy, but the routine mechanics of repression in Angola — a system in which lethal police force, prolonged pre-trial detention, and political cover converge, while courts remain silent. On the morning of 28 July 2025, José Ngola left his home in Golf II to buy a spare part for his father’s sewing machine. His cousin Benvindo left Camama to purchase a phone battery. That same day, amid police operations […]

Read more

Judges Breaking the Law to Jail Critics of President Lourenço

In Angola, judges are breaking the law to keep critics of President João Lourenço behind bars. The case of social activist Osvaldo Caholo is not an isolated judicial failure. When examined alongside the detention of Serrote José de Oliveira, widely known as “General Nila,” it reveals a consistent pattern of judicial non-compliance with the law in politically sensitive cases in Angola. On 12 January 2026, the Guarantees Judge of the 5th Section of the Criminal Division of the Luanda District Court, Maria Nazaré Dias, ordered activist Osvaldo Caholo to stand immediate trial on charges of Rebellion, Public Incitement to Crime, and Public Apology of Crime. At the same time, she unlawfully refused the adversarial investigation (instrução contraditória) requested by the defense counsels Bruno Xingui and Simão Afonso, despite clear provisions of the Criminal Procedure Code requiring adversarial judicial scrutiny when legal or factual objections are raised. Caholo had already been […]

Read more

Shot by Police, Jailed Without a Crime

“General Nila” has now been detained for six months. He was shot by officers of the Criminal Investigation Service while walking to a hospital with his siblings before being taken into custody, as documented by Maka Angola. On 14 October 2025, the Office of the Presiding Judge of the Luanda District Court denied a habeas corpus application submitted by defense counsel Hermenegildo Teotónio for street bookseller Serrote José de Oliveira “General Nila”. The ruling held that he was charged exclusively with the offence of Disruption of the Provision of Public Services, under Article 4 of the Law on Crimes of Vandalism, and with no other offence. “General Nila” has now been detained for six months. He was shot by and officer of the Criminal Investigation Service while walking to a hospital with his siblings, before being taken into custody, as documented by Maka Angola. On 4 December 2025, however, the […]

Read more
1 2 3 4 … 49