The Covid-19-moving lines in Africa. Since a few weeks, Angola is no longer the third economic power in africa. According to the latest estimates of the international monetary Fund (IMF), the country’s GDP will shrink this year by 1.4 %. On the contrary of that of Kenya, his successor on the podium of the economies of the continent, which is expected to increase, to him, of 1 %. In question ? An interruption almost total exploitation of oil. The slowdown of the global economy, and China’s, first customer of Angola, has made the drilling of major international corporations oil companies operating in the country – ExxonMobil, Chevron, Eni, Total and BP – off. And the planned expenditures in the sector have been widespread, downward shift, of the order of several billion dollars.
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The Covid-19 came to aggravate a situation already concerns
If the pandemic of sars coronavirus has a blow to the activities of the country, the economic crisis currently Angola is in reality much more profound. “The Covid-19 has actually exacerbated some problems. But the scale of these past five years, these three months are anecdotal, ” said Jon Schubert, a professor at Brunel university in London. For him, ” the crisis of 2014 had already pointed out the flaws in the systemic countries “. The origin of the crisis for the authorities : the fluctuation in the price of oil on which the State derives a third of its revenues. But for this specialist in Angola, the explanation is elsewhere. “The volatility of the price of black gold is only the trigger. It is the management of oil revenues, which is at the origin of the recession that has engulfed the country since four years now. “
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Infographic. © DR
Second largest oil producer in sub-saharan Africa and a member of Opec with about 1.37 million barrels of oil per day, the potential of Angola is immense. But the corruption practised at the summit of the State during the four decades of the era, Dos Santos, has denied any large-scale development. The monopoly and management of the powerful State-owned company responsible for the exploitation and production of oil and natural gas, Sonangol, denounced in January in Luanda Leaks, have not enabled 32 million people to reap the fruits of reserves in angola. “The hunger and misery that are now part of the everyday life of many Angolans, says Manuel Alves da Rocha, an economics professor at the catholic university of Luanda. In the outskirts of major cities and the capital, humanitarian aid does not fail. Many do not have access to water, electricity and basic health care. “
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Joao Lourenço, a hope, and then nothing
The arrival of the new president, Joao Lourenço in September 2017 had however been a lot of hope. As early as the first months of his mandate, the former secretary general of the party-State MPLAse launches in a vast campaign of anti-corruption. Objective ? Improving the economy and attracting foreign investors. Two months after taking power, he dismissed Isabel Dos Santos, the daughter of the ex-president and president of Sonangol, and then his half-brother José filomeno do Dos Santos, the leader of the sovereign wealth Fund of angola in January 2018. A few months later, the chief of the intelligence services (SINSE) is replaced, as well as the chief of staff of the army, after his indictment in a corruption case involving 50 billion dollars.
in Parallel to this ” witch-hunt “, Joao Lourenço undertakes a wide-ranging programme of economic reforms. The national development plan 2018-2022 promotes human development, public sector reform, inclusive growth and diversification of the economy. According to the minister of Energy João Baptista Borges, the State provides for the construction of infrastructure with a capacity of approximately 600 MW of solar energy in the country by 2022, with the installation of approximately 30 000 individual systems of photovoltaic power generation. The privatisation of energy assets of the State, but also banks, ports, and telecommunications companies, is also launched.
“The action of Joao Lourenço, and the launch of economic reforms have generated a lot of euphoria in the population, especially in the start of his mandate,” says Jon Schubert. But today, the disappointment takes over. The Angolans have a hard time seeing the practical effects of its policy, because their daily, it, has not changed much. This makes fifteen years that they hear about economic diversification, in agriculture, in particular, for the final few hits and no real impact. “
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The same MPLA is in power
An observation shared by Manuel Alves da Rocha, who ” personally […] has never let himself be dragged along by the wave of optimism of the first months “. Indeed, to the economist, ” when an economy is stagnating, when the indicators of the business climate remain very problematic, when human capital does not correspond to the requirements posed by the structural transformations of the economic fabric, where institutions do not exist, when institutional instability is high, and when the government continues to take inappropriate decisions in the current reality – the acquisition of 200 high-end vehicles for ministers, State secretaries and other members of the nomenclature, the investment of $ 42 million to build the headquarters of the national electoral Commission – there can be private investment, especially from abroad “.
Despite the ” reforms “, “the efforts of transparency” and ” investment obtained “, “the MPLA governs still, the DNA is always the same,” he complained. The agreement of credit facility obtained in December 2018 with the IMF, with a duration of three years and a significant amount of 3.7 billion dollars, do not convince most. “The intervention of the IMF remains very controversial, because it focuses exclusively on aspects of the stabilization of public finances and the exchange rate, leaving the social issues, the revival of growth and employment in the background,” he maintains.
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Nearly three years after the access to the presidency of Joao Lourenço, the fact is bitter. Angola is struggling to extricate themselves from the slump in the economy in which it is pressed under José Eduardo Dos Santos. Jon Schubert, ” even if his approach is sincere, the task of Joao Lourenço remains immense. It must be a mutation in-depth, very radical. But the government does not have the money to put it in place, ” says the teacher-researcher. Of what to measure, the immensity of his task.
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