The government has some economic diversification programs, but funds are lacking to implement them. João Lourenço made in the first years of his mandate a major offensive of economic diplomacy seeking international support. On the other hand, as you can read on here, is trying to recover some of the money diverted from the public purse into the private domain by combating corruption and the privatization program.
However, outside money is not coming in. “It is difficult to attract foreign investment to diversify the economy, there is a lot of suspicion”, says Carlos Rosado de Carvalho. Some “‘shots in the feet’ don’t help either,” he adds. The most recent was the “sub-concession of a telecommunications license, owned by the state-owned Angola Telecom, to an Egyptian investor without a public tender ”. Or another more widespread practice, that of “the majority of public contracts are not by public tender as required by law”.
It is not surprising, therefore, that last Tuesday (September 29), João Lourenço, in the speech of the inauguration of the Economic and Social Council that brings together 46 names from civil society (something unthinkable in José Eduardo dos Santos’s reign) said in the face of “the sea of difficulties” resulting from the low price of oil and Covid-19, Angola’s “only way out” is domestic production.
David Mendes, who is also an independent deputy for UNITA, and president of the Clean Hands Association, is convinced that “This is the worst crisis ever, except the one experienced in the 80s – the result of the intensity of the war, the lack of movement of people and goods ”. It guarantees that it does not compare to 2014. “People want to demonstrate the lack of crises due to the gross domestic product, wanting to demonstrate that there is a greater distribution per capita: but these are just numbers. People are not numbers: they are needs ”.
A staunch opponent of José Eduardo dos Santos in the past, the lawyer does not accept the responsibility of the previous President for the depleted state in which the country finds itself as the government of João Lourenço did in the beginning. José Eduardo dos Santos was obliged to justify himself, in 2018, at a press conference from his Foundation, to say that he had left 15 billion euros in state coffers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybvxF8rJ_1U
They cannot “pass the blame on to José Eduardo dos Santos”, reiterates David Mendes. “This is a cleaner way of showing incompetence. Because if we don’t give water and say ‘I don’t give water because José Eduardo dos Santos took all the money’ this serves as a basis for not being accountable. But he did not take the oil. What are you doing with oil money (everything is temporary, as it is below, will also rise)? He didn’t take the diamonds … ”
Reforming general Pedro Neto does not personalize, but speaks of “A certain spirit of opportunism, greed and lack of patriotism” at the turn of the country towards the market economy since 1991. “We have no other choice but to fight for the best measures, which are not always very popular”. The MP member of the BP of the MPLA (appointed by JES still as president of the MPLA but no longer President of Angola) does not see a bright future: “How for a long time we adopted populist measures, the system provided bread, everything was subsidized, difficult times are coming, I don’t even want to imagine, with the oil crisis and the coronavirus ”.
The situation has worsened dramatically with the pandemic that has accentuated Angola’s structural vulnerabilities. More than a third of Angolans were deprived of food and drinking water and suffered extreme poverty in 2019 according to a study by Afrobarometer, released last June. To fight Covid-19 you need to wash your hands, but only 3 out of 10 citizens have running water at home or in the yard and half do not have electricity from the public network, for example.
“There are people dying of hunger, the bankruptcy of companies is frightening, the number of unemployed is dramatic”, confirms, on the phone, Adalberto da Costa Júnior, the president of UNITA. “The country is on the edge of despair. I receive daily requests, including from university professors, for help with eating. ”
The leader of the largest and most historic opposition party condemns some executive decisions such as the closure of all schools and universities. “It’s true that some schools could not be open because they have no water or bathrooms but this is not common to all, there are many private education establishments that could be functioning well as many universities that have now been forced to fire. This had very serious consequences, it threw thousands of professionals into unemployment ”. He gives the example of the Catholic University, which had to suspend all contracts “from one day to the next, after being stopped for months, without bribes and without any support”. This was “disastrous, irresponsible, represents a scandalous and criminal view of governance ”, accuses the leader of the“ Black Cock ”party.
The decision to close all education is also contested by Mário Pinto de Andrade, secretary for Political and Electoral Affairs of the Political Bureau of the MPLA and rector of Universidade Lusíada: “It is a very serious mistake, it is eight months without a prescription. Everyone works, except the Education sector ”.
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