Author: Rafael Marques de Morais

Corruption in Angola, Money-Laundering in Portugal and the Impact on Human Rights

Rather than addressing corruption in Africa in general, this brief paper focuses on a particular case study, Angola. The rationale for this analysis lies in the paradoxical combination of the following factors: for the past decade, the country has had the fastest growing economy in the world; it is the third-largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa; it ranks among the most corrupt regimes worldwide and has some of the lowest levels of human development. In recent years, the national oil company Sonangol and Politically Exposed Persons (PEP’s) have invested billions of euros in the European Union, particularly in Portugal. On February 14, the National Assembly passed Angola’s 2013 state budget – the largest ever, to the tune of US $69 billion. This unprecedented budget and the country’s steady economic growth have the potential to transform the lives of Angolans. It is estimated that two-thirds of the 19 million Angolans still live […]

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Goats Tethering at Sonangol

For Christmas gifts to its board of directors, the National Oil Company Sonangol allocated a total budget of US $2.2 million. Watches, luggage and other extravagant accessories by luxury brands such as Cartier, Hermès, Louis Vuitton and Gucci, among others, were part of the range of gifts that the seven executive and four non-executive board members had at their disposal. These gifts were to be exchanged between them, and to be used to reward selected members of the government. Besides the CEO of Sonangol, Francisco de Lemos José Maria, the other executive directors are Anabela de Brito Fonseca, Baptista Sumbe, Fernando Roberto, Sebastião Gaspar Martins, Mateus Morais de Brito and Raquel David Vunge. The non-executive directors are Albina Assis Africano, André Lello, José Gime and José Paiva. When all is added up, each director had US $250,000 to spend on luxury goods. Local analysts welcomed the appointment of Francisco de […]

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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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Top Police Chief Sells Guns in Angola

The Commander-General of the National Police, Commissioner Ambrósio de Lemos Freire dos Santos, may soon become one of the largest private arms dealers in Sub-Saharan Africa. At stake is the importation of 95,000 arms from Brazil, including sub-machine guns, pistols, revolvers and riot control equipment destined for the National Police. The Commissioner’s company, R & AB, has been brokering the deal with the Brazilian manufacturer Taurus, since 2009. In August 2009, as an urgent need arose, Taurus sold 2,600 pistols to the Angolan National Police at a total price of US $825,000. However, R & AB overcharged the National Police for the consignment of the pistols, which included the models PT917 and PT909 (9mm calibre) handguns. Acting as Taurus’s representative for Southern Africa, R & AB presented the buyer, i.e. the Commander of the National Police, Commissioner Ambrósio de Lemos Freire dos Santos, with an invoice in the value of […]

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Arresting the Shabby and Shorty Journalist

In a repressive state with the veneer of democratically elected institutions, such as Angola, the ways in which abuse can be rationalized make parodies. Journalist Coque Mukuta, 28, experienced such a parody on January 4, 2013, while interviewing women street vendors on the arbitrary police beatings against them, for selling in the streets of Viana, in the outlays of Luanda. “I personally saw, while doing my work, six police officers severely lashing women street vendors with electric wires,” said Mukuta. Rather than leaving the area, the journalist, who is the correspondent for the Portuguese service of Voice of America, remained adamant in finishing the recording of his third interview on site. “They [the six police officers] came straight at me, hauled me off into their vehicle, confiscated my equipment, and slapped me several times, and told me I would be thrown in jail,” he said. At the municipal command of […]

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Trafigura and the Angolan Presidential Mafia

In two years of operations in Angola, Pumangol has become a leading player in the marketing of Angolan oil, as well as in the distribution of oil products in the country. This company is a joint venture between multinational Puma Energy, a subsidiary of Swiss based company Trafigura, and its Angolan counterpart Cochan. In August 2010, President José Eduardo dos Santos authorized a total of five investment contracts worth US$ 931 million, by multinational Puma Energy and its Angolan partner Cochan. In  a country ranked among the 15 worst in the world to do business, the rapid success of Trafigura and its subsidiary Pumangol  is, by its own right, a case study and one for an in-depth investigation into its dealings with the presidential inner circle. The Geneva-based company benefits of a swap contract with Sonangol. Trafigura receives Angolan crude oil (in unknown quantities) in exchange for delivering all petroleum […]

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Water for Chevron and a Lesson for the Government

A U.S oil multinational, Chevron, recently kick-started a new venture in Luanda’s most affluent residential area, Talatona:  a water well for the consumption of its employees. The first well for the rich, privileged and expats, in a luxury gated community, is about to pump water to the 100 houses of Condomínio Monte Belo (Beautiful Heights), where most of Chevron’s expat employees live.  Since the August 31 elections, the Angolan capital, Luanda, a sprawling urban chaos with more than five million people, has been plagued by severe water and electricity shortages. Monte Belo is one of the extravagantly expensive gated communities that have mushroomed south of Luanda and it is worth over US $250 million. Chevron commissioned the real estate project to the Brazilian construction multinational Odebrecht, in a joint-venture with a local private company Sakus Empreendimentos e Participações, set up by Sonangol oil executives. Sakus is currently fronted by Mirco […]

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Alternating Demonstrations: Political Protest and the Government’s Response in Angola

In March 2011, at the height of the North African street protests, an anonymous letter went viral. It called for a mass demonstration in Luanda’s Independence Square, in the capital of Angola, on March 7, 2011. At this symbolic demonstration, the police arrested all seventeen individuals who attended, including three journalists and their driver who were there to cover the event. The ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) politburo accused Western intelligence services, as well as pressured groups in Portugal, Italy, France, Belgium, Great Britain, and Germany, of disseminating the online letter that demanded an end to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos’s thirty-two year rule. In an anticipated counter-offensive, the MPLA held pro-dos Santos demonstrations in several parts of the country on March 5, 2011, at a staggering cost of over $20 million from the party coffers. State media propaganda claimed that, in Luanda alone, the march […]

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Guards on Trial After Being Jailed in ‘Cash Machine’

Fifteen soldiers from the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency (Casa Militar) appeared in the Luanda Regional Military Court on Tuesday, accused of making a collective demand for better salaries and better living and working conditions. The charges follow an incident on 7 September last year, when 224 soldiers from the unit in question signed a petition addressed to the commander of the Presidential Guard Unit (UGP), Lieutenant General Alfredo Tyaunda, complaining of poor working conditions and salaries. The soldiers sent copies of the petition to the Military Judicial Police, the Military Prosecutor and the Chief of Staff of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). Besides demanding decent salaries, the soldiers claimed proper salary slips, and for their salaries to be paid directly into a bank. A group of five soldiers who spoke to Maka Angola, on behalf of the others, revealed that […]

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The Presiding Judge’s Quixotic Dealings

Later this week, Angola’s Constitutional Court will rule on a challenge brought by opposition parties against the National Electoral Commission, claiming widespread malpractice in the conduct of the national elections held on August 31. As background to the forthcoming judgement, Maka Angola here recalls how the Chief Justice of the Constitutional Court, Rui Ferreira, has conducted his own business affairs. The deal in question involved the purchase of a building that houses an upmarket Luanda nightclub, Dom Quixote. In 2007, Ferreira purchased the building on behalf of his business partner António Lisboa Santos, with an agreement that Santos would acquire the building from Ferreira after paying off the debt over a period of four years. Ferreira is now claiming that Santos pays him around $5 million, almost ten times the building’s purchasing price. Of this sum, US$2.2 million comprises interest charged at 75 percent on the purchase price of the […]

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