Angolan parliamentarians under surveillance

Carlos Feijo and Manuel Vicente (c) angonoticias.com

By Afonso Adilson

LUANDA – HUMAN rights and corporate governance experts and activists in Angola have called for close monitoring and surveillance of Angolan members of parliament after they were accused of setting up commercial companies for personal gains.

The parliamentarian’s business activities and extra-parliamentary roles raised various questions in light of current legislation which promotes transparency.
Investigations on these members of parliament has assisted corporate governance experts and human rights activities to keep a closer watch on the moral integrity of those elected representatives who are responsible for keeping the government in check.
It had become common practice for Angolan members of parliament to set up commercial companies with members of the government and with foreign investors for personal gain, in the same way that they have done with state contracts.
This practice was creating a situation that prevent them from conducting their duties as parliamentarians, as well as conflicts of interest and influence-peddling, risking making corruption an institution inside parliament.
The watch dog’s surveillance, who are working with the Angolan authorities has led to the arrest of Augusto da Silva Tomás, a former transport minister, over corruption allegations.
Tomás was arrested in September over crimes of corruption and embezzlement.
He is the first top government official arrested over corruption allegations since independence from Portugal in 1975.
Tomás served as a minister of transport under Dos Santos’s government and was fired in June, 2018 by President João Lourenço.
In a survey of the business activities of six Angolan MPs, by journalist Rafael Marques de Morais it was established that blatant overlap of personal, commercial and governmental concerns ‘makes a mockery of the supposed separation of powers between the legislature, the executive and the judiciary’.
In the finding that has resulted to the new administration being strick and vigilant about corruption, Julião Mateus Paulo ‘Dino Matross’ and João Lourenço signed, as shareholders, a contract with the Angolan state with an initial value of US$103.2 million to establish the Companhia de Cervejas de Angola S.A. (Angolan beer company), whose factory is being built in Bengo province. The Council of Ministers approved the contract hours before it was signed.
While Dino Matross, who was MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) secretary-general and an MP, signed as a private investor, João Lourenço, who was vice-chair of the National Assembly, signed as chairperson of a private company, JALC – Consultores e Prestação de Serviços.
The then chairperson of the National Agency for Private Investments (ANIP), Aguinaldo Jaime, signed on behalf of the state after the Council of Ministers ratified the contract through Resolution 84/09 on 23 September.
The council argued that the contract had been drafted with a view to promoting investments ‘that seek to pursue economic and social objectives in the public interest, namely the improvement of people’s welfare, additions to housing infrastructure, increased employment, and the nurturing of Angolan enterprise’.
The other point to be noted about the creation of the beer company was the presence of then Minister of Defence Kundy Paihama as a private investor.
Other shareholders were Bevstar, a company registered in Cyprus, and the Angolan companies Colimax, Lesterfield Capital, Real Business, Waygest and Novinvest.
The latter had as its main shareholder the lawyer Carlos Feijó, who was a legal advisor to the CEO of state oil company Sonangol, and chairperson of the technical committee of the Constitutional Commission.
Quite apart from Companhia de Cervejas de Angola S.A., the same investors were involved together in a glass-manufacturing firm, Sociedade Vidreira de Angola S.A, which invested US$60.6 million in setting up a glass factory in Bengo province.
The Council of Ministers approved this investment on 1 July 2009, and Prime Minister Paulo Kassoma sent the contract to ANIP to be formalised. It was signed, hastily, on the same day. Aguinaldo Jaime signed on behalf of the state, while parliamentarians Dino Matross and João Lourenço signed respectively as a private investor and as chairperson of JALC. Defence Minister Paihama again signed as a private investor. The Council of Ministers ratified the deal through Resolution 70/09 on 31 August the same.