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THIS SPACE IS FOR SALE President Joao Lourenço: businesses, arms deals and old ghosts Scepticism about the new President and his policies is growing By Miguel Sanz Maputo, Mozambique
hen President João Lourenço attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss town of Davos in January 2018, he suggested that the winds of change were blowing in Angola. His message to investors was clear: the economic outlook looks bleak, but Angola’s poor record with corruption, its overreliance on oil and mismanagement of public funds is over and he is the one to steer the ship around. While in Davos, he met with key stakeholders, including Christine Lagarde - the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa; and Sergey Ivanov - the Chief Executive Officer of Russia’s diamond miner, Alrosa. This year, however, he did not attend. Have the winds stopped blowing or has the ship been hijacked?
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Rising sexual violence in South Sudan (Picture by Isaac Billy - UNMISS)
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UN report released highlights persistently high levels of sexual violence in South Sudan’s northern Unity region, with at least 134 women and girls raped, and 41 having suffered other forms of sexual and physical violence just between September and December 2018. Among the survivors, some were as young as eight. The actual level of sexual violence is likely to be considerably higher than the
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The strange cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Scepticism about the new President and his policies is growing. Africa Confidential wrote this month that ‘his honeymoon was coming to an end as public focus shifts to the economy’. Economics Professor Justino Pinto de Andrade at Universidade Catolica de Angola told The Africa Report in September that he doubts how the culture of patronage has changed given that Lourenço ‘has surrounded himself with the same people as dos Santos’. Continued on Page 4>
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South Sudan: Brutal sexual violence persists in northern Unity region – UN report Continued from Page 1<
number of cases recorded. The report by the UN Human Rights Office and the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) warns that although attacks against civilians have decreased significantly since the peace agreement was signed on 12 September 2018, endemic conflict-related sexual violence continues in northern Unity. The sexual violence was committed in a context of “pervasive impunity, which contributed to the normalization of violence against women and girls,” the report notes. Almost 90 percent of the women and girls were raped by more than one perpetrator and often over several hours. Pregnant women and nursing mothers were also victims of sexual violence. In one incident alone on 17 December, in the village of Lang in Koch county, five women were gangraped, four of whom were pregnant, including one who was nearly nine months pregnant. Survivors of sexual violence described being brutally beaten by perpetrators with rifle butts, sticks, small firearms and cable wires, if they attempted to resist their assailants or after they were raped. The ruthlessness of the attackers appears to be a consistent feature of the sexual violence documented, the report states. The report also indicates that the perpetrators had a certain level of premeditation. One survivor told how she and her friends were raped on three separate occasions. With each attack, the number of assailants increased significantly. Most of the attacks are reported to have been carried out by youth militia groups and elements of the pro-Taban Deng Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO (TD)) as well as South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF). In a few cases, attacks were perpetrated by members of proRiek Machar Sudan People’s Liberation
Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO (RM). The investigation found that multiple factors had contributed to the upsurge in sexual violence in the area, including large numbers of fighters on “standby” mode, awaiting implementation of security arrangements under the peace deal; the presence of many armed youth militia; and a lack of accountability for past sexual violence at the individual and command level. Given the destruction of livelihoods, forced displacement and food insecurity after years of civil war, many women and girls have to travel long distances through high-risk areas in search of food, water and firewood, the report states. The report notes a feeling of resignation amongst survivors, and a sense of normalization surrounding the risk of being subjected to sexual violence. “We women do not have a choice,” one 30-year-old survivor from Koch County said. “There is no alternative for us. If we go by the main road, we are raped. If we go by the bush, we are raped. I was raped among others in the
same area repeatedly on three different occasions. We avoided the road because we heard horrible stories that women and girls are grabbed while passing through and are raped, but the same happened to us. There is no escape – we are all raped.” “The volatility of the situation in South Sudan combined with the lack of accountability for violations and abuses committed throughout Unity, likely leads armed actors to believe that they can get away with rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence,” said the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet. “Sadly, we have continued to receive reports of rape and gang rape in northern Unity since the beginning of this year.” “I urge the Government of South Sudan to take adequate measures including those laid out in the peace agreement - to protect women and girls, to promptly and thoroughly investigate all allegations of sexual violence and to hold the perpetrators accountable through fair trials,” Bachelet added. The High Commissioner also called
on the authorities to ensure that humanitarian organizations can conduct their work without fear of reprisals and with unobstructed access to victims. Upon receiving initial reports of the increase in reported cases of sexual violence, UNMISS immediately engaged with political leaders and security services. The Mission also increased peacekeeping patrols and cleared foliage from roads to make it more difficult for attackers to conceal their presence. UNMISS has been operating a mobile court in hotspots, such as Bentiu and Malakal, to help address the issue of impunity, and intends to work with local judicial authorities to support such mobile courts in prosecuting crimes more widely across the country.
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Even Marcolino Moco, who Lourenço has appointed as NonExecutive Director of State-owned energy company Sonangol, in September 2018 also made headlines when he in an interview with Paris-based Jeune Afrique threatened to resign if Lourenço did not keep his promises. Lourenço’s positioning as a politician of modest origins and stated determination to eradicate corruption at the highest levels is starting to disappoint. Key figures of the former regime remain as influential as ever in spite of the apparent purge, during which Lourenço sacked the children of the former President, José Eduardo dos Santos, from their positions at Sonangol and the sovereign-wealth fund, FSDEA. Most concerning so far has been Lourenço’s public protection of Manuel Vicente, who was Chief Executive Officer of Sonangol from 1999 to 2012, and then Vice-President of Angola until 2017. In fact, many suspected Vicente not Lourenço – would succeed dos Santos. But a criminal case in Portugal against the former halted those ambitions. Just before WEF in 2018, Lourenço lambasted Portugal’s Attorney-General for charging Vicente on suspicion of bribery and money-laundering and demanded that he be tried in Angola instead. Specifically, Vicente is suspected of bribing Portuguese prosecutor Orlando Figueira with EUR763,500 to drop charges of money-laundering against him in 2011. That investigation was in relation to a purchase of a EUR4 million property in Estoril, Portugal, in 2007. Vicente has always denied wrongdoing. One month after WEF, Portugal agreed to Angola’s demands. Figueira, however, was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison in December 2018. The Portuguese prosecutors said in their ruling that it was ‘evident that Vicente […] was the owner of Portmill Limited and Portmill Limitada’, two companies at the heart of the case and in which Vicente has held stakes. According to Portuguese media, Angola’s AttorneyGeneral has said that Vicente will be able to answer to charges five years after his mandate ended, which will be in 2022. Although Vicente is no longer in the government, he remains a close ally of both Carlos Saturnino, Sonangol’s new Chairman, and José de Lima Massano, the Governor of the Central Bank – Banco Nacional de Angola (BNA) – since October 2017, when he was appointed by dos Santos. And according to an article in the Financial Times last September, Vicente continues to be Lourenço’s advisor. What is more, other members of the ‘triumvirate’ – a term commonly used to
describe the three most powerful members of the dos Santos regime outside the Presidential family which includes Vicente, as well as General Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior ‘Kopelipa’ and General Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento ‘Dino’ - have remained in powerful positions. Despite Angolan law barring public officials from having commercial interests, all three have admitted to holding shares in Cobalt International Energy - a Texas-based oil company that filed for bankruptcy at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the city of Houston in December 2017 after a deal to sell concessions to Sonangol fell through a year earlier - according to Mail & Guardian in 2012. They allegedly also played a central role in the downfall of Banco Espirito Santo de Angola in 2014, a subsidiary of Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo, through toxic debt that had been contracted to Portmill Investimentos e Telecomunicações. But a raft of other investigations and publications by reputable online media outlets also allege that they held stakes in a raft of subsidiaries and offshore companies connected to Sonangol. Kopelipa, the former head of the President’s security cabinet and widely considered one of the country’s wealthiest men, is also married to
Welwitschia ‘Tchizé’ dos Santos, another of the former President’s daughters. Portuguese authorities last year confirmed investigating allegations against him relating to moneylaundering, specifically in relation to transactions he made between 2006 and 2013 to offshore accounts in the British Virgin Islands. At the time, Kopelipa was Head of the national reconstruction office, GRN, which was in charge of improving infrastructure. Many millions of U.S. dollars were spent on Brazilian and Chinese construction projects, and yet, Angola’s transportation network remains derelict in many parts of the country. Similar procedures are yet to be confirmed in Angola, although both Kopelipa and Dino have been removed from their positions in the security apparatus by Lourenço. French connections and arms deals While Lourenço has taken a tough stance against Portugal, relations have warmed with another European power: France. Total has already announced a series of new investments in the country, pushing out Swiss commodity trader Trafigura which up until last year had held a near monopolistic position in the country. This came after Lourenço in Continued on Page 6<
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Angola
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December 2017, set up a working group to review the oil sector and ‘improve the current conditions of investment in the oil and gas industry’. In January 2018, Sonangol called for new tenders, hinting that Trafigura’s long-running, but opaque, position was likely over. Although the details of the contracts with Total are scarce, they are likely to be on par with that of Trafigura’s which was worth USD450 million in 2017. Although Total has been present in Angola for a long time, the French oil major is now taking a more active role in the country’s extractive sector, underscored by its decision in May 2018 to launch the Zinia 2 deep offshore development in Block 17 along with several other oil majors, including AngloDutch BP and the U.S.-headquartered ExxonMobil. But Angola has also made deals with other companies with links to France. One of them is UAE-based Privinvest, which in September 2016 was reported to have signed a deal with Angola worth USD495 million to provide 17 patrol boats and a promise of technology transfers that would enable the construction of naval vessels in Angola. To do this Privinvest would work with Simportex – a State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) that operates under the direction of the Angolan Ministry of Defence. An Africa Confidential article noted in February 2017 that the deal bore ‘strong resemblance’ to another deal Privinvest had signed with Mozambique a few years earlier. That deal is currently being tried in U.S. courts after Jean Boustani, a Privinvest executive, along with 12 others was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and money-laundering in December 2018 and
Angola's President João Lourenço
January this year, respectively. Reportedly this was in co-operation with former senior executives of Swiss bank Credit Suisse and Russian bank VTB, who were also charged, suspected of having facilitated improper payments to Mozambican officials and the country to subscribe to more debt than it could realistically manage. Allegedly, Privinvest founder Iskandar Safa was at the heart of the Mozambican deal. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported in November 2016 that ‘Credit Suisse became involved in the deals in 2012, when the lender
Angola's former President José Eduardo dos Santos
began discussions with defense contractor Iskandar Safa, who negotiated a deal to supply Mozambique with military and surveillance equipment through his company Privinvest’. In the two years following, Credit Suisse along with VTB and French bank BNP raised USD2 billion in bonds and loans for Mozambican SOEs, loans which more than doubled Mozambique’s government-guaranteed debt leading to a series of defaults. Apparently, ‘proceeds from the deals went straight from the banks to Privinvest rather than the state-owned companies that had borrowed the money’, reported WSJ. The questions around the Angolan deal are now beginning to gain momentum. Firstly, because there is no publicly available business plan, which could outline how the apparently large number of boats will be manned by the 1,000 or so strong Angolan sailors considered a low number - and the Navy’s inexperience in building ships. Secondly, the deal was signed at a time when Angola’s finances are poor; while they were signed under dos Santos, Lourenço was Minister of Defence at the time. This means that he was likely privy to the business deals set up by his Ministry, although the extent of his involvement is unclear. Notwithstanding, the Privinvest order replaced another one Simportex had signed with the Brazilian navy to supply seven Macaé class patrol ships for
USD170 million. Worth noting is that the Macaé ships are constructed in Brazil but designed by Construction Mécanique de Normandie (CMN), a French subsidiary of Privinvest Shipbuilding Group. CMN was the same company that was to supply naval vessels and build a shipyard in Mozambique. At the time, Simportex was managed by a close associate of Kopelipa: Luís Manuel da Fonseca de Sotto Mayor Pizarro. Further, he was one of scores of other military officers promoted to the rank of Brigadeiro in September 2017. New money flows in, while debt grows Meanwhile, money and credit continues to flow in, as Lourenço’s early announcements and actions to sideline the former President’s family likely fuelled optimism among international investors. During the first two quarters of 2018, Angola received credit pledges worth over USD1 billion from Western banks, including a USD700 million loan from Credit Suisse. In May, BNA raised over USD2 billion in a two-tranche Eurobond note of 10-year and 30-year maturities. The bonds were oversubscribed, reflecting strong optimism about Angola’s new beginning under Lourenço. In December, the IMF finally signed off on a three-year extended credit facility of USD3.7 billion - the Washington-based financier would immediately disburse USD900 million to support the government’s budget and Continued on Page 11<
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Fashion
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Fashion4Africa at Screen Nation Awards rganisers of the Screen Nation Awards partnered with Fashion4Africa at this yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s edition of the Awards. Anna Njie founded Fashion4Africa when she saw a gap in the market for more designers and models of African origin. Each year, she runs a competition to pick a designer and model and mentors them by giving opportunities like the recent trip to Gambia which was
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sponsored by Black Beauty magazine. During the trip, the designers mixed with the locals to learn textile tips. The beautiful models were stewards and wore nude designs from Sincerely Nude - one of the designers showcased during Fashion4Africa 2018. They also wore Fashion4Africaâ&#x20AC;&#x2DC;s Ambassadors couture dresses from Niki Moyo.
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Opinion
SA Finance Minister Mboweni calls for calm By Koketso M Marishane outh Africa’s Finance Minister Tito Mboweni delivered his maiden Budget Speech amid high expectations from the country. His admiration for the so-called “holy-verses” portrayed him as a self-proclaimed prophet surrendering his powers to the holy ghosts than a capable executive presenting firm financial fortunes after the national economic difficulties. Perhaps the Minister thinks the country lacks holy messengers? What Minister Mboweni forgot is that, SA is in need of professionals, the artisans, doctors, engineers, teachers and economists. SA has more than enough selfproclaimed pastors and prophets of doom. SA needs clear strategies and plans on how to recover from the 2009-2018 Zuma wasted years. The 2019 Budget speech by Minister Mboweni has thus changed the national psyche of SA into a mysterious enigmatic character awaiting redemption and salvation. Its proposed solutions are seemingly ancient rubble rhetorics changing into colossal figures in uncertain times. The citizens of this country should ask: Who was the Minister trying to hypnotize with such degenerated kindergarten riddles? Frankly, such riddles should only be presented to his elite club of politicians, which he’s part of. We know that his club is part of the culprits that deliberately waste public funds on luxury cars and every available luxury thing that has nothing to do with growing the economy nor advancing its long-term plan. For those thinking Minister Mboweni is pushing for plans against inequality and poverty - think again! The Minister tends to suggest that, when science fails, faith becomes the panacea as referred to as his “bold new path” with charisma. We should ask, how many plans has the country produced and how many amongst those, has the country implemented successfully? Not all was bad in his speech as he openly and unashamedly admitted in parliament that South Africa is in a financial mess, of which he’s technically the custodian of through the National Treasury. The very same mess that can be attributed to the Zuma era when the country lost R500 billion when the then President Zuma, fired and appointed
unnecessarily created to please and appease internal factions.
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Tito Mboweni - South Africa's Finance Minister
several Finance Ministers in a week. It has become public knowledge that the present government under the ANC is full of corrupt politicians, and the budget speech proved exactly that, with Minister Mboweni being too shy to diligently deal with them to reclaim the public resources from thieves and restore hope and pride in the national psyche of South Africans. On the inverse, we can learn from the Budget Speech that Minister Mboweni intends to do the following: (a) Enhance growth; (b) Improve tax collections; (c) Enable responsible expenditure; (d) Level off debt; (e) Revive State Owned Enterprises and (f) Cut the public sector wage bill. In a country full of ‘divided unions’, we must be mindful that any word on ‘wage-bill reduction’, sparks an inconvenient debate on labour targets whereby worker retrenchments will rise and inequality and poverty worsens. On the inverse, Minister Mboweni highlighted a few critical areas, namely: (g) the allocation of the R23 billion per year across the MTEF period to the national power supplier - ESKOM; (h) the appointment of a Chief Restructuring Officer (CRO) and the power utility subdivision. In simple terms, this is clear signal that ESKOM will eventually get privatised because scientifically the prescription does not match the disease, whereas the universal truth is that ESKOM finds itself in an unhealthy space of jumping to the filthy deployment strategy
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of the ANC. Need we remind the ANC that whenever their deployees enjoy political protection, they tend to flout principles of governance with impunity and the country degrades because of such. In a country seeking progressive innovative plans to embrace, Minister Mboweni may perhaps consider the following: 1. Abolish the 9 provinces in the country. A developmental State like SA shouldn’t have 10 ‘Presidents’ (1 President + 9 Provincial Premiers) in a poverty stricken tiny country. It’s puzzling that a single department in the country is led by 10 ‘Ministers ‘(1 National Minister + 9 MECs). It makes good sense to abolish the 9 Provincial Governments and replace them with Administrations, in so doing, the country can redirect the much needed resources to Local Government where services are badly needed. Due to patronage and corruption from the ANC, numerous government departments weren’t initiated with the sole mandate of principled ethical governance for development in the country and as such, many high-end jobs have been
2. Poverty stricken and middle class feeding the pit. In a country like SA, where every dissatisfaction is met with ‘falling’ but inflation continues uninterrupted, there’s seemingly no firm commitment from ANC led government to totally and rapidly return dignity to the poor. These are people already living in shame, and thus, need to be saved from losing hope. Minister Mboweni has seemingly forgotten about them because he’s only allocated 43% to Provinces and 9% to Municipalities and Local Government with the rest allocated to National Government, which to some extent, paints the service delivery picture in local government dull and irrelevant. Mindful of the state of infrastructure in most urban areas, the neo-liberal policies bias resembled by Minister Mboweni can find expression through the rehabilitation and promotion for preservation of Indigenous Knowledge System activities of developing usable infrastructure in rural, townships and semi-urban areas as a turnaround economic strategy. Amongst the most painful of issues is the continuous rise in fuel tax. In the South African context, the poorest of the poor are conveyed the unending harsh message of ‘it’s not yet uhuru’. Fuel levies are up by 15 cents, and by 37% cumulatively since April 2018. In addition, fuel prices will continuously bear a carbon tax of 9 cents for petrol and 10 cents for diesel. We can thus argue that Minister Mboweni has no plan for job creation, no plan for reviving the economy, no plan for instilling hope for the nation but a good plan for paralysing the country by hypnotic scriptures. Luckily for Minister Mboweni, because he’s a positive record, will not need to defend his flickering hypnotic ideas from his budget speech as he might not return to the portfolio - post 8 May 2019 National and Provincial Elections.
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massive expenditure programme. That added to the growing mountain of debt that Angola subscribed to in 2018, a lot of which will eventually be guaranteed by the government and, consequently, the Angolan tax payer. International credit-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service echoed this concern, when it at the end of April downgraded Angola’s investment rating from B2 to B3 with a stable outlook, warning against the country’s growing debt-burden which it said presented high liquidity risks in the medium term. The IMF also noted this in its review in December 2018 which estimated Angola’s debt-to-GDP at 90 per cent; it was just over 62 per cent of GDP one year earlier. Other macro-economic indicators underscore the growing concerns. The subscription to new debt is mainly a reprofiling of maturing obligations, while the drop in average oil prices in 2014 severely damaged the country’s reserves of U.S. dollars, essential for imports and maintaining the stability of the kwanza, which the BNA floated in January 2018.
Furthermore, the country has been struggling to get out of a recession even though oil prices have somewhat rebounded over the past two years. Although the World Bank projects Angola’s economy will grow by 1.8 per cent this year, it will take a lot of discipline on behalf of the Finance Ministry to maintain a lid on spending, to prevent the deficit from spiralling again. Added to that is that Sonangol - the cash cow of the government - has persistently missed its revenue targets since 2014 while continuing to sign up to new debt which it has struggled to repay. Furthermore, the State budget for this year was calculated on average crude oil prices at USD68 per barrel, according to influential magazine Africa Confidential - an optimistic projection given that average prices of Brent crude were in mid-January just above USD61 per barrel. Hour of reckoning That Lourenço is continuing to trade with the same individuals and companies that have been implicated in such massive corruption investigations places major doubts on his true intentions. More
Manuel Vicente
people are beginning to wonder whether the initial corruption investigations against dos Santos were just for show, given that no one has yet been tried, let alone convicted. An amnesty bill introduced last year which allowed wealthy Angolans to repatriate stolen public funds without running the risk of any criminal prosecution has now
expired, but there have been no reports of such funds having been repatriated under the amnesty over the past year. Angola’s engagement with companies that helped Mozambique’s debt spiral, while raising a lot of debt on capital markets is concerning, especially given Angola’s increasingly bleak economic outlook. The economy remains very dependent on China, which accounts for most of its oil exports as part of the country’s debt-repayments to Beijing. Meanwhile, the global economy is showing strong signs of slowing down, with demand declining in China. In addition, the now-record-long U.S. government shutdown will seriously slow growth forecasts for that country - some are saying it will grow by 0 per cent this year – indicating that the prices of oil will not pick up in the one-to-two-year outlook. That will have knock-on effects on the Angolan economy and its inability to generate revenue, it may be time to replace your Economic Adviser, Mr President? * Credit: http://www.verdade.co.mz/economia/67 800-president-joao-lourencobusinesses-arms-deals-and-old-ghosts
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