I am going to talk about them two days and wall up and the reforms of President John Law and so.
First, I will may have a short background about the angle and what led to the present situation.
Then I will talk about the reforms that Lawrence is engaging, in fact, is when big reform is,
we are going to see, Oh, I'm going to defend, then we will see the some of the consequences of the reforms.
And finally, I will make some analysis of do the reforms to be a provisional and now, he says, the reforms that, you know, are an ongoing process.
So maybe things are not what they appear now or maybe they will be different or not.
We don't know for sure no one's now. So the conclusion will be provisional.
Well, let to begin. Let us begin with the basics.
And voila, is the country what we can call off? War and hope sinks night in 1961.
It has been in war. And what what we can call a liberation war.
That liberation war against Portugal. The former colonial power endured deals.
74, then a revolution occurred in Portugal.
But in that revolution led to independence of Angola in seventy five in seventy five,
three or four months after the signing of some agreements that were going to to produce independence, the Civil War began in Angola.
The Civil War took place with some eyes and downs, but took place between seventy five and twenty two.
So it was a very long civil war war after twenty to twenty thousand two.
Angola began what we can call a process of reconstruction that did not went well, and we are going to talk about it.
Um, Anglo is a very rich country, is nowadays the third largest economy in sub-Saharan Africa after South Africa and Nigeria.
It has plenty of all diamonds. Those is it.
And also very good. The waterways and splendid conditions for agricultural in regarding natural resources is a very it is a very rich country.
Since 79, we have had President Bush and President Bush was one example of the big man in Africa who was president from 79 till 2017.
The first president of Congo after independence was a poet.
Then the medical doctor called existing net wealthy was him.
Is there so called in Moscow, in Soviet Union?
Then in not very clear circumstances, even today, we don't know exactly what weighs this up and what we know exactly.
It was substituted by Russian descent was a man famous for his silence and is famous for doing nothing.
And so sometimes those could be the more injuries.
So even threat to power in 17:09 is a non dangerous man because he was always silenced in the in the back of the room,
and he stayed there until last year. He was president first in a Marxist regime.
Then he presided to a transition towards a kind of democratic regime.
And after that, in twenty ten, he presides all through another kind of regime, also a democratic, so-called free democratic regime.
Well, what what is true is that in 2016 27.
Angola was one of the poorest countries in the world as a stagnant economy.
And was it corruption everywhere?
So no one really wanted Dos Santos to continue, and there was a very strong, popular pressure to change things and and change it.
At least at first of names happened, and then third, the new president joined.
What else do you see as the the one with the bowing to the former chief audience,
who was the former minister of defence of Lushan, was from the same party?
Let's say that it was the same. Parties seen 75 feel now that occupy power in Angola.
The party called MP Del. And so, and the election of Lawrence was a lot of accusations of fraud happened.
I participated in some of the discussions and it happened that the votes on the local polls were not transmitted to the regional polls.
And then some results appear in the regional polls, and we don't know why.
Well, but. So what what else was seen as a continuation of the regime?
Another one. But since the beginning else, we initiated a novel historic and proposed and is the main aim was to fight corruption and is serious.
We are going to see is that through fighting corruption, we create a series of consequences that we led to economic development.
So corruption. Well, I'm anticipating the argument.
So what does put it's so is main aim was to fight corruption and why fighting corruption is the main objective of the new president.
And we can say of almost all the Angolan society.
This is a picture that the team, I guess I'm part of it took at the one the morgue.
And it's an example even the morgues don't do not function at one that at one the
morgue each family carries these yellow jerry cans carries the box for that,
and they have to wash themselves. They are. There's weeds of the water of jerry cans.
They put the best in the box and they treat everything. So even even in death, there is no welfare, no institutions function, innuendo.
And from this sweat, the small, small fact we have the big facts.
The IMF found, for instance, in Twenty Twelve Me, thirty two billion of US dollars disappeared from state budget.
We don't know why. Since 2014, the economy is in recession or stagnant malaria and epidemics killed a lot of people every every year.
So those are facts we have to say.
In the end, it is. It's the same time who did the.
The idea is that corruption kills. The idea that was pre-facelift in Angolan society is that corruption kills is not the question of some ministers.
If a cut of five percent and the rest continues, the cut sometimes is off and off percent because in exchange we have the morgue.
But we have the president and the family of prison in and with yachts, with a lot of wealth and showing their wealth around the world.
And that is the problem of corruption in Angola.
Somehow sowore's right to fail and beat about what they call good corruption or the corruption that they put the the economic function.
In that case in Angola,
with the amounts diverted from the public treasury were so way that they influence the lives of the population and the development of the economy.
So in the demonstrations that people use that mean corruption, criminal yawned.
That means corruption in your scribe is the worst crime.
Now he's seen that's the worst crime in Angola.
As we are going to see further corruption is not exactly what we call technically corruption because under the mantle of corruption,
there are a lot of behaviours, different behaviour.
So when we talk about corruption, we are not talking about the roles that command international transparency concepts,
but of the more large or broad gossip.
The story of corruption in Angola is now all linked to what the economists call the frontiers of possibilities of production and costs of opportunity.
We have here the good, the famous, the famous war if we produce.
Guns we don't produce, but if you lose, but you don't produce guns, it's the usual single economics.
What people say in language, if we if corruption, we don't have economic development,
if we have a way of economic development, we have to erase corruption.
So there is a direct link as there is the famous link of gangs and but there is
a direct link between them corruption and economic good economic development.
And why that link because of the amounts, for instance,
in the programme of yellow fever that are supposed to gnaw which Norway that support some programme of yellow fever for for combat yellow fever.
It was discovered that another percent of the programme was taken off by the minister and this stuff.
It was not the question of five percent or 10 percent.
It was a question of Anderson and the percent. So we that huge amounts.
It's impossible to tolerate to tolerate any longer corruption because it's a question of option between development and corruption.
So the essential theory is that combat corruption will make available a huge amount of money.
It will create a new climate of confidence for investment as well,
if the obstacles to free operation of the markets and their productive forces and economic growth will happen.
It is not usual to link corruption directly to the idea of economic development, but these the the the well is the bit.
Of Jewel, what else? But that means that the concept of corruption is not the legal concept, as you know,
the legal concept is that corruption is a crime connect to receive certain amounts to perform or not certain acts.
Your corruption is more seen as a system where the state a bit more a bit has happened in South Africa,
but a broader and larger as some people occupy the state.
And so that occupation they used the state to their own benefit.
What are killing Bambi called the privatisation of sovereignty.
In practise, it was what happened.
The story goes now in Angola, the privatisation of sovereignty means that in-wall was a state withdrawal, but without population population.
In fact, war was not important to political power because they didn't pay the taxes they did to enrich the political power.
The taxes came from the oil.
So the important thing was to protect the oil and the businesses so we can call while the kind of states that didn't need population.
Well, those were the concepts.
Those were the concepts that are in the base of the sort.
Well, we don't look at the inner workings of the brain of the young audience,
but as far as we can see through the conversations and the advisers and the sort of enquires and research
that the previous concepts were the ones that were in the base of the sort of glorious Lawrence.
Also, to a certain extent, the IMF and World Bank adds the same sort as when George Oriels announced these reforms,
they revealed in a the projections concerning GDP and economic development.
It was an error, but we are going to talk about it later.
So we chart the reforms. The first reform is the risk.
Sorry. The research was very important because Gloria, so almost every day, even for you,
now speaks that its main aim is to combat corruption and impunity beyond do.
There is sorry. We have what we can call the reforms or the changes that he has tried to make.
The former. The first one was the dismissal of former leaders linked to president.
Russia is famous Dr. Isabel Docents.
That is, the the richest human in Africa, according to Forbes, was the message.
This message from the CEO of Sun and Gold, the oil company is son of the shell that we call Xenu.
That means it's an abbreviation for Joseph.
Your means to search was dismissed from the sovereign fund, and there was a general change of the guard, let's say.
So the first thing was the dismissal, mostly of the family of the former president, but that is not unusual.
The second one was the abolition of someone monopolies.
For instance, Isabel doesn't have the monopoly concerning diamond trade.
And there were some tender contracts concerning the construction of dams.
This was all news or abolish or abolished.
Then we have the political empowerment of the torno attorney general to prosecute personnel,
exposed persons in peace and the powers that there is New Jersey's lesson.
But the general powers of the general attorney did not change.
What changed was the political impulse, he was told.
That's. Now, it was time to prosecute the former Vipers, and some prosecutions began.
And the most famous was the arrest of the son of the former president, chairman of the sovereign fund and also of the former minister of Transport.
With no prayer, no prisons, we had three or four cases, one case of a transfer of five hundred million dollars to one of them.
I should say that London is always what we can call the perfect financial centre for all financial operations.
In the end, concerning gets to be single and I suppose most of Africa.
But in the UK, authorities announce that transfer and it created.
A case, but this case is going on.
The state has recovered the money but is going after and we have also new suggestions for asset recovery,
so the focus is to match or is in asset recovery.
The president wants to recover all the assets that are around the the legislation as we are going to see later.
There's not one, but the most in what we can call.
The symbol of the reforms is a person is in that arrest and it is the arrest of the son of the former president.
He is now free, as I will explain later.
So what were the first effects and consequences of those kind of reform who are not economically were not economical?
The the and the leash of economic productivity of economic investment of foreign direct investment did not happen.
Well, we have to say that we have only a year of the reforms, but few now the economy.
The economy is still stagnant.
The effects were to a popularity rise of Lawrence in Angola, and now he has the kind of legitimacy that he did not have sued the elections.
But now is he has a residence, the children of the former president.
And this means the children of the former president is a popular guy, you have to say.
And it is a good international environment he's received in the capitals of Europe.
He's well received in USA, but he's also well received in China and Russia.
Yes, that good capital. Those are the effects. However, the reforms and what they have, what they call some ambiguities and the symmetries first.
Those were reforms based on risk, sorry. And the legal cases and works.
Wind blows words as we know and concern illegal cases.
The question is that that that cases are now crumbling.
What begin with great strengths from judicial now only when minister is under arrest?
One and there were a lot of ministers and generals.
And it does not seem that the cases are going forward effectively then to prosecute.
It seems a lot of trampling what I call trampling of the rule of law.
If, for instance, members of Parliament were detained without authorisation of Parliament Billy Bathgate,
but then the courts were agreements were made. But the law prohibits it's it's forbidden, according to one goal in the law two way of plea bargains.
No, it's not as Brazilian or the Westgate law. No specific structures were created to combat corruption.
In fact, the deal last month, there was only one single prosecutor with all the cases.
More VIPs were left outside the general sweeping than inside Manuel.
If you sent these men here with might michele them of Brazil is an example.
He was prosecuted in Portugal. The former Portuguese,
the former colonial power due to questions of corruption and the new president was introduced
in the diplomatic battle with Portugal to avoid and was successful to avoid that prosecution.
And V.S. is considered by journalists in the investigative agencies the most corrupt of the past because he was the head before.
Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the Russians because it was the man of SonicWall, it was the oil man.
So he is considered the worst. And even though he is considered the worst, he has the protection of the new president.
So what we see is that same thing happened, but not very much.
And in the end, the main objective that was equal economy recovery did not happen.
The economy continues without any growth in the year.
The IMF and World Bank, yeah, maybe they are confirmed the position of full Roma.
That's a day off for former research director of the World Bank.
That said that most sometimes there now is these are buyers due to political considerations, and it seems they saw Lawrence.
We're now seeing a great sweep against corruption. And they revised the numbers of economy.
And then after one year, the numbers were completely different, different because the fundamentals of the economy.
They did not change. So we have here a cartoon of the most famous cartoonist of Angola called Sergio beside him.
This is the President Claudius. He has six fight against corruption.
This is hope that the people are getting less.
Oh yeah, the that they're winning.
Is, we say, government, all masses and attorney general misses.
And this is now look what we can call in the in the cartoon.
The results of the reforms, the hope is diminishing and the devil is winning, according to what we can call the popular view.
This is from May. I suppose these four might be these these two.
Of course, there were other reforms. A new private investment law, the reorganisation, a restructuring of SonicWall.
But what people think is without success in fighting corruption, that the reforms will be useless.
The great argument is this if we don't fight corruption, we can reform everything.
But in the end, everything will stay the same.
So beginning with conclusions, there is, in fact, a feeble fight against corruption and we can make.
We can choose two ways to see what is happening in Angola.
The first way, the first of first, the reality could be that in Angola, exactly the same as in China with Xi Jinping,
the fight against corruption is mainly a way to reinforce the political power of the new president.
So it's a way to and in the end is to reinforce political power.
Now it's more popular to fight corruption than to embrace the corrupt.
And so through that that policy, the president in the end will stay stronger.
Another explanation for what is happening, this man with the glasses is a former Portuguese prime minister called Marcel.
K10 is the last prime minister of the dictatorship that tried to open the dictator's ship to democracy,
and people say that's flushed to the left and turned to the right because he has made very nice speeches.
But in the end, he has adopt.
We can call for simplifying fascist policies because not because it was his intention, but because the oligarchy of the regime obliged him.
And so maybe the same is happening with Joan Lawrence.
Maybe, yes, it tries to be and that chance of change.
But the structure of the regime will not lead to change because it checks the structure of
regime is strong based on the previous arrangements and will only allow cosmetic change.
So I don't know. The question is, is that if this is the result of more insults,
refurbishes will remain if this sees the result of arrest last week, if it is the result or not of Lorenson reforms.
Nevertheless, I know I want, I want to.
I want to put these out. Nevertheless, the gates are open them and this is the open.
The new speech of Lawrence and the certain new freedom has put people now in Angola discussing
seeing seriously and do we have here with the form with the famous civil society leader?
I work. They now fulfilled the cinemas meetings of conferences.
So there is what we can call a new political awareness that the reform, even if they are, they don't.
They don't succeed. The people will, if we will try to make them succeed with their own own exigencies.
So what? I believe that even if the reforms fail and they seem they have failed,
what is not failing is that the gates are opening and and it will be difficult to to return back.
And I have to add that at the same time, E are the C, even in Zimbabwe, in South Africa, in Mozambique, changes are occurring concerning the former.
The former regimes are, you see, you are full also because Angola is at permanent,
a permanent role in the changing in the DRC, DRC and so maybe in that region, things are changing generally.
And that's it. Thank you for your attention and I hope.
That I've been clear about it. Thank you.