Author: Rui Verde, MakaAngola Legal Analyst

The Cash-Strapped Kleptocracy Seeks an IMF Bailout

Angolan Finance Ministry officials seem to have learned nothing from the past.  With low oil prices dragging the economy into crisis, the Ministry has had to turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout.  But Angolan officials are so desperate to conceal the extent of their troubles, that their official statement pretends this is a ‘normal’ IMF intervention, not at all like the rescue that Portugal needed just a few years ago. In fact, it’s exactly the same type of financial aid programme that Portugal got in 2011, just as the IMF reported at the time. Portugal was given a three-year aid plan.  Angola too is now negotiating a three-year aid plan. According to Min Zhu, the IMF Deputy Managing Director: “We have received a formal request from the Angolan authorities to initiate discussions on an economic program that could be supported by financial assistance from the IMF.”  […]

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A Dictator’s Immunity for Life is no Longer Guaranteed

For as long as José Eduardo dos Santos remains President of the Republic of Angola, and even after he steps down (if he ever does), he is guaranteed immunity from prosecution under Articles 127 and 133 of the Angolan Constitution. This begs the question:  Up to what point is this statutory protection legitimate?  Can a President loot his country with impunity or are there any circumstances under which a serving or past president can be brought to justice? Ever since the United Nations was founded in 1945, jurists in the field of International Law have tried to create legal instruments to prevent political leaders from committing crimes while in office.  To date, the best-evolved and most comprehensive legal instrument for this purpose emerged from the Rome Statute which created the International Criminal Court at The Hague. The ICC was set up to prosecute international individuals for international crimes such as […]

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Low Oil Prices Undo Angola

The crash in the price of oil has hit Angola hard.  Hospitals across the country are low on resources, including medicines.  There are food shortages in the North, drought in the South.  From Cabinda to Namibe, empty shelves in the stores attest to the government’s lack of response. If people are facing such serious difficulties in their day-to-day lives (in the so-called ‘micro’ economy) matters are no better on the macroeconomic scale where double-digit inflation is taking its toll. According to the National Institute of Statistics, inflation in the capital Luanda was running at 1.4% between September and October 2015.  Additionally, in the first months of 2016, the Kwanza has been devalued by 26%. The reason for all this is the low price of oil.  According to the United Nations Development Program, Angola has the least diversified economy in the world after Iraq.  Any fall in the price of a barrel […]

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General Eusébio counts on Friends in High Places to Protect Him

A recent report by Maka Angola detailing land appropriation by the Governor of Kwanza Sul Province, General Eusébio de Brito Teixeira, revealed how blatantly Angolan officials act in contravention of the most elementary rules of administrative procedure. It turns out that this was not an isolated act. Maka Angola has uncovered a second instance of illegal transfer of rural land by the same Governor – this time to a person who might be expected to offer the General  an “insurance policy” against punitive action. On January 26th, 2015, the Governor issued another land concession document to Soklinker Commercial Partners Ltd., granting surface land rights over 7,632 hectares of rural land for the purposes of construction. Soklinker is 75% owned by Sindika Dokolo, the husband of ‘First Daughter’ Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman. The remaining 25% is nominally held by Soklinker’s manager Luís Carlos Amorim da Luz Tavira, whose sister Catarina Tavira was […]

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The Fate of Portugal’s BPI Bank Lies with Africa’s Richest Woman

One of Portugal’s largest and most venerable banks, the BPI Bank could be brought to its knees, not through bankruptcy or similar problems, but because its operations in Angola would be hamstrung if they lose their link to the Banco de Fomento de Angola (BFA). In the first six months of 2015, BFA operations made up 70% of BPI profits.  That shows the extent of the BPI’s dependency on this single financial institution in its Angolan operation.  And BPI’s partner in the BFA is none other than Unitel. Step forward Isabel dos Santos, billionaire daughter of Angola’s President Jose Eduardo dos Santos.  In other circumstances, it might be quite deliciously ironic to see a post-colonial African entrepreneur  – and a female to boot – take down a bank connected to the old boys’ club of Portugal’s well-heeled aristocracy (Santos Silva and Ulrich). In reality, it is much more complicated. Isabel dos Santos’s […]

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New Law Enables Indefinite Detention of Dissenters

Angola’s government, which has faced mounting international criticism over the lengthy detention of dissidents, has rushed through a new law entitled the “Law on Precautionary Measures in Criminal Proceedings”. This sudden development legitimized the release under house arrest, in mid-December, of the 15 activists detained last June during a book club reading, and who are currently standing trial for rebellion but had been held in preventative custody for months. That seemed a positive development, but does the new law really represent an advance in Angolan criminal legislation?  Does it introduce more humane treatment of prisoners in line with the rights set out in the Angolan Constitution? Observers note some positives in that the law is undoubtedly an improvement on its predecessor, the rigid 1929 Portuguese Penal Code.  Efforts in 1992 to update the 1929 penal code took place in a climate of war and resulted in a patchwork quilt that […]

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Isabel dos Santos, the Princess-President?

I have never been taken in with fables. One such fairytale it that the current vice-president of Angola, Manuel Vicente, would succeed President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 36 years. I always believed that the power would be eventually transferred to the son-prince José Filomeno dos Santos, whom the father appointed as head of Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. What did I see recently? The daughter-princess Isabel dos Santos was posing next to Nicki Minaj the US rapper of Anaconda fame. What business does this billionaire egg vendor, as Isabel once claimed to have been, have to do there? This is a kind of exposure that does not benefit her image as a manager or businesswoman. In any case, President Dos Santos recently appointed his billionaire daughter to lead the Luanda Metropolitan Master Plan, to revamp the capital city. The father gave a seat to the […]

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President Dos Santos Illegally Inflates Daughter’s Fortune

Recently, Maka Angola published an article about Isabel dos Santos’ purchase of 65% of Portuguese power solutions company Efacec, for 200 million Euros. In reaction, the Portuguese weekly, Expresso, published a front-page article saying a large part of the money used by Winterfell to buy Efacec was financed by a Portuguese bank. This article was an attempt to dispel suspicions about the dubious source of the money.  The article raised more doubts as it became clear that the Angolan government financed the other part of takeover. The interested parties rushed the deal, and settled it on October 23. The banks that financed this “large part” are Caixa Geral de Depositos, the BCP, BPI, Montepio and BIC, according to an official press release. BCP, BPI, Montepio and BIC are dominated by Angolan capital; that is, Isabel dos Santos and Sonangol.  Therefore, this is a situation in which banks lend money to […]

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Princess Isabel dos Santos and the Looting of Angola

Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos recently gave an interview to the BBC to talk about some of the challenges Angolans face. The Princess, as she as referred to in Angola, is one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in the world, according to BBC. She said one of the main challenges that Angola faces is educating its people. President José Eduardo dos Santos’ daughter came across as being quite well-informed and pleasant: the beautiful face of the dictatorship. I do not doubt Isabel’s intelligence; however, I am not taken in for minute with this fairytale they are trying to impose on us. What is behind the success of this daughter of Angola’s almost life-President? There is this myth that her fortune can be traced to when, as a a six-year old child, she started selling eggs. The business, goes the myth, apparently grew from there. During a case in […]

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The Trial

The trial of 17 Angolan political prisoners has been set for 16 November. Although Luaty Beirão and Domingos da Cruz have featured the most prominently in media reports, there are others who deserve to be mentioned. Manuel Nito Alves,       Nuno Dala,       Mbanza Hamza,       José Hata,       Sedrick de Carvalho,       Fernando Tomás (Nicolas Radical),       Benedito Jeremias (Dito),         Arante Kivuvu         Albano Bingo Bingo       Osvaldo Caholo,       Inocêncio Brito (Drux),     Hitler Jessy Chiconde (Itler Samussuku),     Nelson Dibango,     Rosa Conde (Zita),     Laurinda Gouveia (Lau).   History has already passed judgment on these youths: they are a symbol of the Angolan yearning for freedom; they are new heroes that, over the centuries, have been filling the glorious pantheon of […]

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