Search Results for: Huíla

Phantom General in Huíla

By Lázaro Pinduca War veterans, in the Huila province, have come out publicly to demand answers on the promotion of local businessman, Luís da Fonseca Nunes, to the rank of lieutenant general and as the beneficiary of a monthly pension from the Social Security Fund of the Angolan Armed Forces (CSS/FAA). Nunes is one of the most prominent businessmen in Angola. Notwithstanding, the former soldiers expressed concern that he should be awarded a lifelong monthly pension from the social fund, as a lieutenant general, without having ever served in the military. According to the president of the Independent Forum of Demobilized Angolan War Veterans (FIDEGA), Lieutenant-colonel Manuel Nunes, “we can confirm that the businessman is a general”. The official explains that, in 2009, “we suggested to the then prime minister, general Paulo Kassoma, that a legal protocol for complaints be established, in order to tackle the problem of phantom officers, […]

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Angola Drought Emergency

Humanitarian organizations are warning of an impending food emergency in southern Angola as the region faces the aftermath of the worst recorded drought in nearly half a century.  Launching an urgent eight-million-dollar appeal, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said five consecutive years of severe drought had left more than 1.5 million people at risk of famine.  It’s not known how many may have died already as a result of drought and malnutrition but thousands of starving people braved crocodile-infested rivers to cross the border into Namibia to seek help and survivors reported many dying along the way.  Namibia is repatriating drought refugees who, given the ongoing conditions, are having to regroup in resettlement camps in Angola. The Angola Red Cross has begun delivering primary assistance to the worst-affected areas in the provinces of Huila, Cunene and Namibe.  But the situation is said to be […]

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Angolan Port Authority Seeks End to Sogester Contract

The Danish multinational giant, Maersk, stands accused of making obscene profits at the expense of Angolan dockworkers amid calls for the contract awarded to its subsidiary, Sogester, to be ripped up. The Port of Namibe says it is struggling to pay its workers because it is powerless to revoke a 2014 contract which gives 90% of income to the port’s commercial operator, Sogester, a joint partnership between the Maersk group’s APM Terminals and a company which is the commercial arm of Angola’s ruling MPLA party. According to the Port of Namibe board chairman, António Samuel, “it has been an enormous struggle to safeguard workers’ pay and keep going on the 10%”. The dockworkers’ union agrees – and says it is high time this contract was torn up. The port authority and union are hoping the government of President João Lourenço (elected in September 2017) will step in to review what […]

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Swindling Angola’s Central Bank

Although to date Angola’s efforts have focused on severing ties to Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais’ management of the Sovereign Wealth Fund, his involvement in what is alleged to have been the systematic theft of money from the Angolan public purse goes further than the mismanagement of the Sovereign Fund. Up to now the government has remained totally silent about a further US $3 billion dollars that Bastos secured from Angola’s Central Bank (Banco Nacional de Angola – BNA). As with the Sovereign Fund monies, the BNA funds also found their way to the Northern Trust Bank in England, reportedly used as the hub for diverting funds obtained from Angola into Bastos’ Swiss-based Quantum Global Group. Maka Angola expanded its investigations after a whistleblower from the BNA entered into contact subject to guarantees of anonymity. The BNA official asserted that “these funds [the BNA’s US$3 billion] have been managed without accountability.” […]

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UNITA Says 14 Provincial Results Invalid

Angola’s largest opposition party, UNITA, has declared that 14 of the country’s 18 provinces have not yet delivered results from last week’s elections in accordance with the law. UNITA’s intervention comes a day after the National Election Commission declared that the provincial verification process had been concluded, following voting on 23 August. Yesterday, the Constitutional Court also ruled against a complaint lodged by the Coalition for the Salvation of Angola (CASA-CE), which also ran in the elections. CASA-CE, like UNITA, demanded that CNE tally the votes in each province according to the electoral law. “The provincial verification carried out in terms of [the law] happened only in the provinces of Cabinda, Uíge, Zaire e Malanje,” UNITA’s Political Commission said in a statement issued on Thursday. The statement added that the verification process conducted in two further provinces, Benguela and Moxico, could not be considered conclusive. “In the provinces of Cuanza […]

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Vote Counting in Angola Marred by Irregularities

The Angolan National Electoral Commission (CNE) announced yesterday that it has already processed the tallying of the final results of the August 23 elections in 11 of the 18 provinces, according to its spokesperson, Júlia Ferreira. These are the provinces of Bengo, Benguela, Cabinda, Cuando-Cubango, Cunene, Huíla, Kwanza-Norte, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, Moxico and Zaire. However, the Angolan opposition parties claim that 11 of the country’s 18 provinces – Bengo, Bié, Cuando-Cubango, Cunene, Huambo, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, Lunda-Norte, Lunda-Sul, Malanje, Moxico – have still not verified their results as the law requires. This list includes five of the provinces in which the CNE declares the counting is complete: Bengo, Cuando-Cubango, Kwanza-Sul, Luanda, and Moxico. The various provincial electoral commissions have declared that they have completed their task, but the commissioners appointed by opposition parties are refusing to approve the vote tallies from these provinces. According to the list that Maka Angola had access […]

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Band-Aid Needed for Angola’s Red Cross

Maka Angola has learned that the Angolan Red Cross is in considerable disarray. Numerous sources have come forward to allege that the charity is riven by mismanagement and corruption. Allegations of theft, embezzlement and diversion of funds are ignored, while provincial offices and staff are starved of resources and salaries go unpaid. The President of the Angolan Red Cross (Cruz Vermelha Angolana, CVA) is Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s President, José Eduardo dos Santos, and a reputed billionaire. When installed as CVA President back in 2006, to lead an organization with 140 staff, she announced a commitment to good governance. “The limited resources available to us to tackle such an immense task require very careful management, and oblige us to make the best of what we have, to manage with the utmost rigor and to adopt the principles of good governance. It is important that this administration should be […]

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Caluquembe Police Fire on Students

From Angola comes yet another report of out-of-control police officers shooting at demonstrators. Three students were wounded, one of them seriously, when police officers opened fire without warning as the youngsters were taking part in a protest march last week in the central Angolan town of Caluquembe, in the province of Huíla. The students were protesting over demands for extra money in connection with their studies, after a local authority meeting decreed that emoluments would be added to tuition fees.  They were also protesting at the summary dismissal of teachers who did not go along with the move. Two of the injured were named as 17-year-old Paulo Alfredo Cabral, a student of economics and law at the Novo Horizonte college and 21-year-old Cecília Camia Francisco, who is a student at the Teacher Training college. Both received gunshot wounds to their legs. “In all, three young people were shot.  Two were […]

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Angola’s Human Rights Crisis: the Abuse of Preventative Detention

Last October, I wrote an article for the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso on the ineffectiveness of the presidential pardon system, in which I argued that inhumane treatment is an integral element of Angola’s overloaded Justice system. At that time, the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos, had decreed pardons to prisoners who had served half of their sentences (provided those sentences did not exceed a maximum of 12 years).  Government news releases hailed the move with the headline:  “Thousands of prisoners are set free thanks to the presidential pardon”. Yet while convicted felons benefited, the presidential pardons had no effect on detainees held for years without trial in what Angola calls “preventative detention”. I quoted several cases:  that of João Domingos da Rocha, a 26 year-old who had spent seven years in preventative detention on suspicion of the theft of second hand clothes; of Justino Longia, also detained for five […]

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Don’t Look, Don’t Point! The Savagery of an Encounter with the Police

Malungo Sapalalo says with immense pride, his voice cracking, that he is from Huila, a province in Southern Angola that has long been a magnet for tourists and campers, an area many describe as heavenly within national standards. The search for work drew him to the country’s capital, Luanda, where he has encountered hell: arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of police officers.  It could have been worse.  He witnessed officers beating a fellow detainee to death. This is Malungo Sapalalo’s story. On November 5 last year, around midday, Sapalalo was busy at his second job as a loader near the ” Onze de Novembro” football stadium (named for Angolan Independence Day, November 11).  He was loading construction blocks for delivery to building sites. While resting between loads, he and four other workers got into a conversation about vehicles, comparing the relative speeds of a Toyota Hilux versus a […]

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