Tag: Kilamba

Angola Travel Warning

Foreign nationals in the Angolan capital, Luanda, are being advised to take extra precautions after a recent spate of kidnappings.  The crime wave has prompted the United States to issue a security warning, highlighting what its Embassy in Luanda calls “developing crime trends”. In the past two months alone, Chinese, French, and Belgian nationals have been kidnapped by gunmen who demanded a ransom.  The victims were released unharmed within a few days once the ransom was paid.  The Angolan authorities suspect these crimes were all carried out by the same group and they have speculated that the recent murders of two Portuguese citizens may be linked to the kidnappings. According to the US Embassy in Luanda, the incidents revealed so far include the March 30 interception of a Lebanese-Belgian citizen driving near his home in the city centre, forcibly abducted by armed men but later released on payment of an […]

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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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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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