Category: Articles

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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Chinese Couple Present Diplomas to Angolan Presidential Guards

A Chinese couple has had the honor of presenting diplomas to officers and soldiers of the Angolan Presidential Guard. The recipients of the diplomas had completed a 45-day military course at the Angolan presidency’s prestigious Chacal Instruction Center. Maka Angola obtained a lengthy video of the ceremony, which took place on August 15, 2014, during the celebrations of the ninth anniversary of the Central Detachment for Protection and Security of the Intelligence Bureau of the President (known as DCPS/CSPR).  The prominence accorded at the ceremony to Mr Wan, a construction contractor, and his love interest raises concerns about protocol within the Angolan Armed Forces and, by extension, in the presidency. No civilian authorities were in attendance at the ceremony. A snapshot of the video has been edited for public view, and this portal has asked for an expert opinion. The executive-secretary of the Intelligence Bureau of the President and commander […]

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Crashing Oil Prices, Propaganda and the Angolan Recipe for Disaster

Throughout the Angolan capital, Luanda, strategically located billboards announce a country being happily stewarded through development by the government. “Building a prosperous Angola based on solidarity”, is the boastful slogan across all ads celebrating the government’s achievements in all spheres of life. One such billboard celebrates “more electricity, more development”, in spite of the regular power outages. Such a massive propaganda exercise outside the electoral period has a precedent only in the early 1970s, when the Portuguese colonial authorities desperately tried to sell the idea that their rule was making people very happy, and independence could ruin all such great achievements. Nonetheless, this propaganda is in full swing at a time when the steady drop in the oil price on international markets could be good news for the Angolan people and a bad omen for their rulers. As a major countermeasure, last December the presidency decreed a 20 percent rise […]

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Member of Parliament Innovates in Law Breaking

Just days after being elected to the National Assembly by the provincial constituency of Huíla, Vigílio da Ressurreição Bernardo Tyova wrote to the minister of Geology and Mines asking for a mining concession in the municipality of Quilengues, in order to explore, extract, commercialize and export quartz. In the letter, dated 18 September 2012, Mr Tyova introduced himself as a managing partner, lawyer, “university professor” and 2nd secretary of the Provincial Committee of the  ruling MPLA for Huíla. Up to 2010, the businessman held the position of municipal administrator of Lubango, in the province of Huíla, where most of his businesses are based and have flourished. Already the title-holder of black granite mining concession nº 1012/327/TE/DNLCM/2008  in the municipality of Chibia, the lawmaker was looking to increase the number of concessions in his name. Omatali is a family business of which Mr Tyova is a 75 percent shareholder, with the […]

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Journalist Banned from Practicing in Cunene Province

On 7 January, the provincial government of Cunene informed journalist Paulo Kuza that he was to cease all professional activity in the province for an indeterminate length of time. According to Mr Kuza, the provincial director of Information, Faustino Ndasuamba, handed him the ban during a meeting they had. Last December, the journalist joined the staff of Rádio Despertar, the only radio station to openly criticize the government. The station has been transmitting on FM to the greater Luanda area since 2006, as part of the Peace Agreement between the government and the former rebel movement UNITA. Stunned by the information Rádio Despertar called the provincial director to confirm the ban. Maka Angola heard a recording of the telephone conversation between the deputy director of Rádio Despertar, Queirós Anastácio Chilúvia, and Faustino Ndasuamba. The provincial director confirmed that he had held a meeting with Mr Kuza.  In a language reminiscent […]

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The Woman who ‘Invaded’ Military Barracks in Benguela

The Army Military Academy in Lobito municipality, Benguela province, is investigating Maria Alexandra de Vitória Pereira, a 48-year-old Angolan citizen who is accused of having invaded the academy’s premises on 22 December. Maria Alexandra is the daughter of the late MPLA parliamentarian Carlos Alberto de Vitória Pereira Mac-Mahon. She in turn has laid a complaint against the academy, saying she was beaten and subjected to racial abuse there. The case began with a parked car. Ms Pereira stopped her car in the street near the academy’s wall about 10 pm to attend to her seven-year-old daughter Ashanti, who was crying. She was on the way back from a dinner, accompanied by José Patrocínio, a civic activist and the director of the NGO Omunga. Some soldiers surrounded the driver, demanding that she remove the vehicle immediately. Ms Pereira says she asked for the soldiers’ understanding, and asked them to let her […]

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National Director of State Assets in Major Land-Grabbing Fraud

On June 5, 2014, the national director of State Assets at the Ministry of Finance, Sílvio Franco Burity, successfully petitioned the governor of Kwanza-Sul, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, for the legalization of 8,974 hectares of land, to be used for his own private agricultural and cattle rearing projects. The land in question is located in the commune of Quimbalanga, in the municipality of Mussende, and consists of two contiguous holdings. Sílvio Franco Burity applied for the title deeds of the first holding, of 4,751 hectares, as the representative of Grano Gado Lda, a private company. The director formally owns fifty per cent of the shares in Grano Gado, while his partner and managing director of the company, Manuel dos Santos da Silva Ferreira, owns the other half. Unconcerned with current legislation, whether due to impunity or arrogance, Angolan leaders ignore the constitutional principle that the land belongs to the […]

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How Police Commanders Brutally Assaulted Laurinda Gouveia

One National Police officer grabbed Laurinda Gouveia’s mobile phone, and another punched her in the face. They dragged her a few meters, by the hair, to a National Police vehicle. Laurinda committed the crime of treason by attempting to take part in a demonstration demanding the resignation of president José Eduardo dos Santos. What followed is her personal ordeal. Last Sunday, November 23, at around 4pm, Laurinda, a 2nd year student of Philosophy at the Catholic University, and part-time street vendor of barbecued meat, went to Independence Square in Luanda, in the company of three other activists. While her companions were trying to get to the Agostinho Neto monument, Laurinda was taking pictures from a distance. “The National Police patrol car took me to the 1st of May School [Commercial Institute of Luanda], beside the Square. Six police commanders and plain clothes SINSE  (State Security and Intelligence Service) officials surrounded […]

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From a CIA Conspiracy Theory to the Murdering of Activists

The trial regarding the 2012 killing of Angolan political activists Alves Kamulingue and Isaías Cassule, which resumed on November 18, continues today. The central question still concerns who, in the chain of command of the state and the ruling MPLA, ordered their deaths? What is known is that the two had been involved in organizing a demonstration on 27 May 2012, which was intended to involve former members of the Presidential Guard and demobilized soldiers. After negotiations with and pressure from the Presidential Intelligence Bureau, the former presidential guards pulled out of the protests. A further question is why the alleged killers of both men are being charged in a single case, although each death involved a different group of suspects. A total of seven suspects have been detained. In the Kamulingue case, two National Intelligence and State Security (SINSE) officials have been charged: António Gamboa Vieira Lopes and Paulo […]

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Online Protest in Memory of Activist Ganga

Maria José Vitorino de Carvalho has one mission in life: to demand justice for the political assassination of her eldest son, Manuel Hilbert de Carvalho Ganga, who was shot twice in the back and killed by a member of the Presidential Security Unit (USP) on November 23, 2013. Maria José Vitorino de Carvalho believes that it is her right, as a mother and citizen, to demand justice. As a grandmother she feels that she has a responsibility, in time, to explain to her 3 year old grandson, Uriel Tomás, the efforts made by the family in the face of the impunity of the murderer and those who ordered the execution of his father. On the mother’s request, Maka Angola and Club-K are currently promoting a photographic protest online in memory of Ganga. Citizens who wish to express their solidarity with the victim’s family, those who wish to fully exercise their […]

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