Angola’s Lourenco Vows to Recover Stolen Funds
Angola’s Lourenco has promised to recover the money that the former Angola president’s daughter Isabel dos Santos is hiding abroad. Isabel is the daughter of former Angola president Jose Eduardo. She is facing several financial crimes, which include influence peddling and money laundering.
“With the support of everyone, the civil society, and specialized international institutions, we are implementing initiatives to combat money laundering and recover assets that have been set up with public resources or illegally transferred outside the country.”
The president said. He further said he is ready to fight corruption at all costs. He said they prepare him to rebuild the name of the oil tainted country back.
“We are deepening the foundations of the rule of law, where there is no impunity for acts of corruption and practices of nepotism and influence peddling,”
the head of state said while in an address during a one-day visit by Merkel’s.
Dos Santos Fortunes.
They estimate dos Santos fortune to be worth $2.1 billion. This is according the Forbes magazine, which also named her as the richest woman in Africa in 2013. She has many businesses over the last two decades. She has stakes in some of Angola and Portuguese companies.
Charges against Isabel Dos Santos.
Prosecutors in Angola have accused Isabel of embezzlement and mismanagement of funds during the time she worked at Sonangol. This is an oil giant owned by the Angolan government. She headed the company during his father’s time as the president. They accused of using the former president’s influence as the president of Angola to build her business.
Months after her father stepping down in 2017, father successor, president Lourenco, made her stop working in that oil firm. It also emerged that she looted the country’s coffers when the father was the president in forty years.
Other sources say that some secret documents suggested that the central bank of Namibia gave Isabel’s bank the go-ahead to open some branches in it without completing the needed diligence about her businesses. The finance regulators of Namibia also Okayed the bank trading even when the bank’s shareholders were in overseas. This is an infringement of the policy objections of Namibia. The policy aimed at the foreign ownership capping within the vital business sector.
Isabel Response to the Allegations.
Isabel, in response, denies all the allegations leveled against her.
“I have always operated within the law and law, and all my commercial transactions have been approved by lawyers, banks auditors, and regulators,” her spokesperson said.
However, uncertainty was raised over the future of BIC’s bank in Namibia. This is after Isabel announced that she intends to sell some stakes in two of her other firms in Eurobic. The announcement came in January 2020.
The spokesperson further said that,
“Isabel is an independent businesswoman and a private investor representing solely her interests.”
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