Three years after coming to power and after defending Manuel Vicente in some cases, President João Lourenço now appears to have decided to remove the name of the former Sonangol boss from the cabinet, associating him, for the first time, with an alleged scandal of corruption.
After having resisted pressure from various quarters of society, the green light has now arrived. At stake is Sonangol’s participation in the business of building three buildings and the Hotel Miramar – recently opened by João Lourenço – and the whereabouts of US $ 450 million, which will have been destined for private interests.
And with this change in positioning, “the public peeling process of Manuel Vicente may have started,” a senior MPLA leader told Expresso.
In doing so, João Lourenço ‘uncovered the pot’ and opened a new chapter in his crusade against corruption, as he involved TPA – Angola’s Public Television starting this week in a propaganda campaign against the participation of senior leaders and government officials in private businesses using public funds.
With this exhibition, Manuel Vicente gradually began to feel the siege tightening, at a time when his name appears associated with other alleged corruption schemes. Although he is shielded with immunities that keep him safe from any legal process until 2022, no one has any doubt that, in the face of the growing fragility of his image, the honeymoon between them may have come to an end.
“This serves for the President to clearly demonstrate that the propagated idea that his fight against corruption is selective is false”, defends jurist Jeremias André.
Everything was precipitated after Sonangol, responsible for the total investment made for the construction of three buildings and a luxury hotel, saw its participation reduced in favor of Suninvest, the financial arm of FESA – Eduardo dos Santos Foundation.
In the wake of this engineering, Sonangol would also be caught up against after having disbursed 450 million dollars to hire companies belonging to some members of the top of the oil company, then led by Manuel Vicente.
This was not, however, the only irregularity detected in this business. The judicial investigation carried out by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) also concluded that some senior officials of Sonangol, through the ROC, were associated with Namkuang, the South Korean contractor contracted to construct the three buildings and the Hotel Miramar. Without any investment, after receiving deposits of US $ 58 million from the Angolan oil company, Namkuang would sell its stake to Sonangol itself for the US $ 110 million.
Suninvest, for its part, is accused of having taken a 45% stake in Hotel Miramar, after entering the business with empty hands and having intended 220 million dollars for the land.
Ismael Diogo, president of this company, refutes, in statements to Expresso, the way the process is being placed in the public square and, in possession of the alleged certificate of land registration, guarantees that it was the market evaluation that allowed Suninvest to present those values.
“The problem is that they have never been able to produce documents proving that title, but if they claim those values, let us wait for them to take them to court,” says a PGR source.
In this crusade, João Lourenço has the strong support of social activist Rafael Marques, who now appears every night on the screens of official television in Angola as the main assistant to journalists in charge of presenting a series of reports entitled “O Banquete” , which shows how a minority of Angolans got rich. The TPA reports are beginning to remind us, in various political circles, of the series of programs that aired in the 80s of the last century around the diamond trade, called “Process 105”.
“There is a lot of fireworks around this campaign, which seems to have been set up to divert attention since the problems are deeper and more structural,” Cristina Pinto, a professor at Universidade Lusíada, told Expresso.
Rafael Marques himself, who admits to having been used, recognizes that “it is unacceptable that TPA, as a public body, did not try to make the contradictory because of only the contradictory guarantees a new discussion and a new pedagogy”.
Expresso contacted Manuel Vicente, but he was unavailable to provide any clarification on the charges against him.
