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Lusa - Business News - Angola: Sovereign fund audit shows commitment to beat corruption - consultant
Washington, Mar.3,2021(Lusa)-Consultancy firm Eurasia said on Wednesday that the opening of a public tender for an audit of Angola's Sovereign Fund shows the Angolan President's commitment to fight corruption and ensure the source of funding. In the comment sent to clients that Lusa saw, the analysts from the consultancy wrote, "authorisation of the audit, which may result in more allegations of corruption, deepens the anti-corruption campaign and ensures that the fund remains a credible source of funding for government projects. Angola's Sovereign Wealth Fund, the analysts recall, "has been embroiled in controversy since Lourenço removed the son of former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos in 2018 following accusations of fraud." The fund, they add, "is being used to secure short-term financing needs, especially to finance the Integrated Municipal Intervention Plan, which aims to improve rural infrastructure." The auditor will be appointed by the president of Angola, according to the document. The Sovereign Fund of Angola (FSA) made a profit of US$234 million (€206 million) in 2019, the year to which the latest financial information refers, after two years of losses. The result was associated, according to a note released at the time, to the good performance of the international financial markets in which the Fund has invested about US$1.79 billion (€1.57 billion) on which it recorded potential, unrealised gains from debt instruments (bonds) and equity instruments (shares) in the accumulated amount of US$189 million (€166 million). Last year, the FSA had assets of more than $4.58 billion (€4.03 billion) and equity of $3.67 billion (€3.23 billion), while net investment management costs were $4 million (€3.5 million) in 2019 and operating costs reached $15 million (€13 million). Until March last year, the Fund's new management was deprived of access to information on "alternative investments", which conditioned the completion of the financial statements for 2017, he justifies. The lack of up-to-date information on alternative investments, which represented more than 60% of the funds at the time, led to the independent auditor and the Supervisory Board refusing to give their opinion on that year. It was not until late 2019 that the process of surveying and valuing the assets was completed, concluding that they were worth §745 million (€655 million). The restructuring of the FSA began in January 2018, with the appointment of a new board of directors and the creation of an investment committee that commenced operations in the third quarter of 2019. In April 2018, the board of directors terminated the contract with the previous investment manager (Quantum Global, owned by Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais) and hired the international company Investec Asset Management, now called Ninety One UK Limited, which managed 32% of the Fund's assets as at 31 December 2019. In 2018, the FSA began the process of rescuing control of assets valued at $3 billion (€2.64 billion) under Quantum's management. The financial assets were managed by Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, chairman of the Quantum Global group companies, who was released on 22 March 2019, after almost six months in prison, when the Angolan state announced the recovery of the money. The Swiss-Angolan was accused of several crimes, namely criminal association, undue receipt of advantage, corruption and economic participation in business. At the time, the fund was chaired by José Filomeno "Zenu" dos Santos. The son of the former President of Angola José Eduardo dos Santos, who was removed from office in January 2018 by the Angolan head of state, João Lourenço, was sentenced last year to five years in prison as part of a case that became known as '500 million'. 'Zenu' dos Santos was sentenced for the crime of fraud by defrauding, in the continued form, to four years in prison and for the crime of influence-peddling to two years in prison. The total sentence was five years. The case has not yet become final. MBA/ADB // ADB. Lusa Agency : LUSA Date : 2021-03-04 11:11:00
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