Search Results for: housing

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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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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Angolan Presidential Guards on Trial for ‘Insubordination’

Fourteen soldiers for the Central Protection and Security Unit (DCPS) in the Military Bureau of the Angolan Presidency are to stand trial in the Luanda Regional Military Court starting September 18, charged with the crime of “making collective demands” (exigência em grupo). On September 7 last year, 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). The soldiers expressed dissatisfaction with the unequal salaries accorded to the different military units associated with the Presidency. They reminded General Tyaunda that they were not beggars but graduates of the fourth UGP training course in 2005, which the general himself had described as “the best […]

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Water for Everyone, Cisterns for the Elite

The MPLA’s program for government for the 5-year period of 2012-2017 outlines extraordinary progress in the provision of socio-economic infrastructure throughout the country. Statistics presented in the election manifesto are on a scale comparable only to industrialized nations with high levels of human development. After the World War II, the European countries and Japan benefitted from the Marshall Plan. They relied on the synergy of their people and of the international community for the process of reconstruction and the launch of their development programs. In Angola, the MPLA’s program unveils only the endeavor of one party and one leader. However, this totalitarian endeavor by the MPLA, in power for the past 37 years, cannot prevent citizens from undertaking a critical analysis of the government and its success stories. After all, the MPLA proclaims that it has done everything to improve the quality of life of the people. This article analyzes, […]

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Manuel Vicente: Transparently Corrupt

By Ana Silva   The scheduling of Election Day on August 31 casts a new light on the recent press conference that presented the Performance Report on Executive Activity for the first quarter of 2012. Manuel Vicente, Minister of State for Economic Coordination, lavished detailed praise on the government’s economic advances during his presentation to the media. He referred to newly constructed factories, schools and social housing, as well as investments in transportation infrastructure, and highlighted the launch of provincial radio broadcasters and regional television stations. The minister’s account may have led casual observers to believe that Angola is enjoying a period of true social and economic progress. The country’s economic growth is unequalled, thanks above all to the rise in oil production and prices on the international market. Yet the scene that Vicente described left out the vast majority of Angola’s population, which continues to live in abject misery, […]

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Forced Evictions in Samba in the Dead of Night

A group of more than 150 officers of the Luanda Provincial Government’s Auxiliary Police, supported by heavily armed members of the National Police, demolished more than 80 makeshift houses on the seashore in the Mabunda area of Samba municipality, in Luanda. Some of the demolished dwellings were storehouses for fish and fishing equipment. At about 3.00 am on the night of May 24, the police knocked on the doors of the shacks to get the residents out, then immediately used wheel loaders to destroy the structures and everything inside them, and loaded the debris onto trucks. Luciano Macala, a fisherman, lost eight freezers that he used to store fish, as well as fishing equipment and other items that were in his storehouse. His case is typical. On 10 April 2012, he had paid 25,520 kwanzas (US $250) in taxes, plus 8,510 kwanzas (US $85) to the Luanda Port Captaincy for […]

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The U.N. and Ban ki-Moon’s Propaganda in Angola

Article by guest blogger Rob Pires: Angola is a country that works hard to portray the right image abroad. As we have read on this very website, millions of dollars are being spent on television advertising campaigns and the government really doesn’t like it when foreign media criticise its failings or points out its faults. Thus any high level visit to the country is always a double-edged sword for Angola. On the one-hand they will receive the endorsement and diplomatic niceties from their visitor, which they can use to fill up the airtime and column inches of the state media. But at the same time the foreign media have an excuse – and an expense account – to visit and if they are halfway decent, will be scrutinising closely. And so it was with the visit of United Nations (U.N.) Secretary General Ban ki-Moon, which saw plenty of photographed handshakes […]

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Kero: Manuel Vicente Goes Shopping with State Money

The Kero hypermarket, probably the biggest in Angola, might be considered a model of private investment due to the way it has improved the range, and quality of consumer goods available in the country. But it has also proved to be a model example of how Angola’s top officials continue to ignore the distinction between public and private property and have turned themselves into the country’s top entrepreneurs. Kero has been operating for a year, in Luanda’s Nova Vida suburb. In an interview with the weekly paper O País, Kero’s Brazilian Director-General, João Santos, revealed how much MONEY had been invested by a group of Angolan businessmen in partnership with Banco Privado Atlântico: “The US$35 million is a combination of private capital and resources freed up by the partnership with Atlântico.” The hypermarket occupies a surface area of 7,500 square metres and a total area of 11,000 square metres. A […]

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Foul Play: Corruption and the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations

On 31 January 2010, Egypt emerged the victor in the Africa Cup of Nations, for the seventh time. Celebrations erupted in Cairo, while in Angola, which organised and hosted the championship, the final marked the return to reality. The Angolan government announced that is has spent $600 million on building four stadiums. The 11 de Novembro Stadium, in Luanda, with a capacity of 50 000, was budgeted at $227 million. In a country where the government rules through corruption and disrespect for the law, public works projects invariably involve shady institutional decisions regarding state contracts, to the primary benefit of political leaders. In between the football matches I took the time to investigate the points at which corruption and influence peddling could potentially occur in the process of organising the Cup of Nations. The first case that I am reporting concerns the inspection contract for the construction of the Luanda […]

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