Month: March 2015

Crisis, What Crisis in Angola?

As Angola’s economic crisis deepens, the country’s president has given priority to the construction of a war memorial at an estimated cost of US $72 million, and a further US $73 million going to a phantom category of “non-specific religious affairs and services”.  These projects fall under the Office of Special Works of the Presidency of the Republic. Both expenditures are part of the revised 2015 budget, passed by the National Assembly on March 20, which was slashed by 25 percent (over US $17 billion) – including cuts in the salaries of civil servants. Despite the reduction of the budget due to the fall in oil prices, the president’s  set of priorities are baffling. Oil accounts for approximately 95 percent of Angola’s total exports, and its economy is mono-dependent on this commodity. For instance, the largest state-funded religious project, the construction of the Sanctuary of Muxima for the Catholic Church, […]

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I Believe in the Power of Solidarity

With an award comes a greater responsibility. It is therefore my privilege to accept this journalism award [from Index on Censorship], and dedicate it to my fellow Ethiopian colleagues Eskinder Nega, Reeyot Alemo, and the Zone 9 bloggers. They are in jail, currently serving some of the harshest sentences in Africa, for the crime of exercising their right to freedom of expression. For over a year, the Ethiopian government has denied adequate health care to Reeyot Alemu, who is in desperate need. Ethiopia is the seat of the African Union, and its regime is one of the worst offenders for upholding the freedoms of the press and of expression. When a regime in Africa succeeds in trampling their citizens’ rights with impunity, and enjoys such good international standing and legitimacy as Ethiopia, it becomes a textbook case for other authoritarian regimes. I believe in the power of solidarity. I have […]

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Government Profits from Beer and Blames the Oil Prices

The crisis, which the government blames on falling oil prices, has been used to disguise a much older and deeper crisis  that already existed long before the reasons given by the government lately. The Court of Accounts provides some alarming evidence in its report to parliament on the Government’s Budget Execution Report for 2013 . According to the Court of Accounts report, reviewed by Maka Angola, in 2013 the state was paid dividends to the tune of 95.4 million Kwanzas (US$954,000) on its direct shares in a total of 37 companies. The sum is ridiculously low given the government’s multi-billion dollar investments in the private sector. Apart from the national oil company Sonangol, the state only made a profit on beer sales from its shares in three beer producers. Dos Santos’ government billed Cuca for 67.9 million Kwanzas; a further 23.5 million from N’gola and another 4 million from Eka. […]

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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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