The Government has been committing “mistakes that can be costly in the future”, when passing on seized goods, allegedly built with public funds, without waiting for the court’s decision.
The alert is from lawyers consulted by VALOR, as is the case with Albano Pedro, for whom the State “will hardly escape” the need to compensate some people. “These recoveries are all being poorly done and will give rise to lawsuits that will all be won by individuals who have been expropriated”, warns the lawyer. “What it seems to me is that there is nothing that is being defined from the judicial point of view so that the State can keep the assets”, insists Albano Pedro, noting that the justice is the court and not the PGR that is “definitely learning”. “When a good is seized, we have to consider the provisional situation until the case becomes final. It cannot be admitted that the case that after all has not yet been tried already gives the State the right to say that the good belongs to the State ”, he argues.
The same lawyer, Bruno Dessidi, has the same perception and considers the decision to hand over the goods to the State without being the court to decide. “It is hasty if we have to look at a transparent and impartial process. It denotes an early judgment. And then I agree that if the decision tomorrow changes and the main action is right for the private sector, the State can have high costs. ”
The set of processes that precipitate the lawyers’ warnings involves assets valued at more than US $ 3 billion, with emphasis on the conglomerate of assets, valued at almost US $ 1 billion, belonging to CIF and which was delivered by Manuel Vicente, Hélder Vieira Dias ‘Kopelipa’ and Leopoldino do Nascimento. There is also the 40% that Cochan de Leopoldino do Nascimento held in Biocom, whose investment was US $ 750 million, as well as the three textile units (Satec, Alassola and Nova Textang II) that passed to the State for alleged illegal privatization and whose revitalization will have cost about one billion dollars.
The Media Nova Group companies, as well as Global Media (Tv Zimbo, Radio Mais, Jornal O’País and Revista Exame), Tv Palanca and Radio Global also integrate the assets claimed and recovered by the State.
Among the mafia …
Albano Pedro even warns of the possibility of being in the presence of a “mafia” in order to safeguard the interests of people who are seeing their assets confiscated by the State. “There may be a loophole for a kind of mafia. I know that the lawyers behind it know that if there is a bad transfer, there will be compensation. And the transfers are being made poorly. What is the intention? Is it that the owners tomorrow have the possibility to ask for compensation so that they can recover the money they lost, including the profits? Because this is possible ”, he thinks.
The lawyer also warns that, within the scope of the asset recovery process, the State is also taking holdings of people in good faith who have holdings in some of the assets that are being confiscated.
… And poor management
On the other hand, Bruno Dissidi draws attention to the need for the State to be “strict” in the management of assets, under penalty of also having high costs in the future, due to the deterioration in the value of assets. For this reason, it defends the indication as a faithful depositary the same people who had been managing the assets in order to “mitigate the cost that the State would have in case the decision turns out to be right for the private person”.
Hotel Nationalization “was a mistake”
Jurists also consider the Government’s decision to nationalize the company that owns the Intercontinental Hotel to be “wrong” and warn of the possibility that the State, in the future, may be obliged to indemnify or lose the asset due to “error of form”.
Nationalization took place in October, as part of the recovery process for assets allegedly built with public funds. In a presidential decree, João Lourenço determined the nationalization of 60% of the shareholdings of the commercial company Miramar Empreendimentos, SA, justifying that “a hotel unit financed with entirely public resources was built, through Sonangol-EP” and that the “hotel unit is found in the equity sphere of Miramar Empreendimentos, SA ”.
Albano Pedro understands that the decision to nationalize by presidential decree is “wrong”, since nationalization has to be “by a formal law”, that leaves the National Assembly. “Completely wrong”, emphasizes Pedro, insisting that nationalization can only occur with a law of the National Assembly. Underlining that, unlike confiscation, nationalization is abstract, the lawyer warns that, in the specific case, it cannot be said that there was nationalization. “It is as if the property still belongs to the individual and what is happening, at this moment, is an improper ownership or possession exercised by the State, it is unconstitutional”, he concludes.
“It should not have any effect because there is a form of addiction”, agrees Bruno Dessidi, who does not rule out the possibility that, in the future, private companies will challenge the decision. “This is our analysis, but who has the power? It shouldn’t have an effect, but it is producing it ”, he criticizes, admitting, on the other hand, confiscation as the best option.
Another lawyer Domingos Kitanda agrees that the nationalizations could represent “problems in the future, if it is not proved that the companies were constituted with public funds”. Comparing to Portugal and Brazil, “countries with the same legal framework as Angola”, Kitanda believes that the nationalization process should be determined by the court. “Nationalization is an administrative political process that provides for the right to compensation to the former owner”, conceptualizes, observing that “the Government is doing things in a messy way”.
Maria Luísa Abrantes, through social networks, was the first to criticize the nationalization of the participation of the commercial company Miramar Empreendimentos in the Hotel Intercontinental, having stressed that the President of the Republic has no powers to nationalize, but rather the National Assembly. “When nationalizing, the PR commits to compensate (pay / buy the hotel at the market price)”, he warned.
The lawyer also recalled that only strategic assets should be nationalized, one of the premises of the Law on the Delimitation of Economic Activities. “Is the hotel sector, especially at this stage, strategic?”, He asked.
What does the law say
Passed in March 1976, the Nationalization Law and confiscation of companies and other goods was designed due to the “chaotic situation, inherited from colonialism and aggravated by the imperialist war, which created the need to immediately regulate the nationalization conditions of some companies and abandoned goods or belonging to traitors ”.
“The Council of the Revolution may, in the case of special interest to the national economy and upon a proposal by the Council of Ministers, determine the nationalization of all or part of the assets of companies, national or foreign, that may be considered important for the economy resistance ”, establishes the diploma.
The law, whose need for updating is considered by specialists to be urgent, also states that “the Council of the Revolution may also, on a proposal from the Council of Ministers, determine the nationalization of all or part of the assets of companies in which there has been a State intervention under Decree-Law no. 128/75, of 7 October, when it considers that its permanence in the private sector is contrary to the national interest ”.
Article 2 of the Law addresses the case of companies constituted “with debt to the State”, which is the situation of many companies confiscated and / or arrested that will have been raised with financing from Sonangol or other public companies, within the framework of the Law of 2003 Private Business Promotion.
The 1976 Law states that “the Council of the Revolution may, on a proposal from the Council of Ministers, determine the nationalization of all or part of the assets of companies that have been the object of financial support from State credit institutions and that have applied these financings in operations of interest to the respective company and to the national economy ”.
It also establishes that one can “determine the compulsory transformation of credits” in the debtor company’s share capital. “The resolution of the Council of Ministers referred to in the preceding paragraph implies an immediate amendment to the corporate pact of the company in question and is a sufficient title for the registration of such amendment at the Commercial Registry Office.
The Law, however, determines compensation in the case of nationalizations, clarifying that “the conditions of compensation for the holders of rights related to nationalized goods will be established by negotiations between the State and the interested parties”.
In the case of “Confiscation for Economic Sabotage”, the Law determines that “the Council of the Revolution may, on a proposal from the Council of Ministers, determine the confiscation of companies or assets of national or foreign citizens who practice, in the economic units in which they exercise functions of administrators, directors, managers, government delegates or members of management commissions ”various acts considered crimes by the referred Law.
