Angola’s president, João Lourenço, on Thursday considered “shocking and repulsive” the report on private investments made with “large public funds,” which accounts for a loss of $4.7 billion (€4.1 billion).
Lourenço, who spoke on Thursday in Lobito, province of Benguela, at the opening of the 2019 judicial year, said that after the six months for the effect given by the law, until 26 December 2018, in the framework of the Coercive Repatriation of Capital, the state “is entitled to use all means in its power to recover what belongs to the Angolan people.”
The capital repatriation law was approved on 26 June 2018 and aimed to return to Angola the amounts invested abroad, illegally placed in offshores and other financial centres.
The deadline ended on 26 December 2018 and the total returns are still undisclosed.
“We are committed to working in this direction, with the help of citizens who report, the competent investigative services, the Attorney General’s Office and courts, who will intervene when the time comes,” Lourenço said.
On Wednesday, in a final communiqué of the extraordinary cabinet meeting, it was said that the Angolan state was damaged in more than $4.7 billion (€4.1 billion) in private investments made with public funds.
On Thursday, Lourenço went further and said that the working group responsible to carry out the survey with all the information of investments made with large public funds said it was “some of [Angola’s] large private business groups”.
“Work is concluded and in the government’s hands, and the content of the report is, may I say, at the very least shocking and repulsive,” he said.
According to Lourenço, the state has lost close to $5 billion, “which benefited a very restricted elite.”
