Angola’s Recovered Assets Sums Up to $5bn in Corruption Crackdown

Angola has recovered its stolen assets worth over $5 billion from state coffers in in 2019 alone.

The assets which were plundered both home and abroad according to Justice Minister Francisco Queiroz on Monday16, December is as a result of a two-year crackdown on corruption.

The money, including $3 billion stolen from the sovereign wealth fund, had been siphoned off by corruption and money-laundering, state news agency ANGOP quoted Queiroz as telling an international conference in Abu Dhabi.

According to Reuters, Queiroz did not give specific details about how the money was stolen.

“We have argued insistently that these important resources should be returned unconditionally to the countries from which they were illegally withdrawn in order to be used to improve the quality of life of our populations,” Queiroz was quoted as saying, adding that some countries could do more to help.

An anti-corruption drive has accelerated in Africa’s second-biggest oil-exporting country since 2017, when Joao Lourenco became president, ending the nearly 40-year grip on power by Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

The government wants to erase the influence of the ex-first family, recover lost assets and privatise state firms.

After taking over, Lourenco fired Dos Santos’s son as head of the sovereign wealth fund and his daughter, Isabel, as chair of state oil company Sonangol.

The son, Jose Filomeno de Sousa, went on trial last week along with the head of the central bank accused of transferring $500 million in state funds to a London account.

The government said a business partner had returned over $3 billion allegedly stolen from the sovereign wealth fund.

Members of the Dos Santos family have denied wrongdoing.

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