The portuguese, the right-hand man of the daughter of former President José Eduardo dos Santos, and also involved in the journalistic investigation 'Luanda Leaks', took the office in January 2017, after the signature of the agreement for the purchase of 2 per cent of BFA by Unitel, being elected for the 2017-2019 triennium.
The manager was also the target, as was Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, of the preventive seizure of holdings in companies and bank accounts decided in December by the Luanda Provincial Court.
Lusa questioned the National Bank of Angola (BNA) as to whether the manager currently complies with the criteria of suitability set out in the Basic Law on Financial Institutions and whether the regulator will set up, or has set up, an audit of the management of Mário Leite da Silva at BFA, in the light of suspicions of involvement in financial schemes revealed in 'Luanda Leaks'.
The BNA source only replied that the regulator "is following the matter", without providing further details.
On BFA's board of directors is also another of Isabel dos Santos's close managers, António Domingues, former president of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, as vice president.
A post that was also occupied by Isabel dos Santos, according to the report and accounts for 2017, the year in which the General Meeting of Shareholders approved the appointment of the corporate bodies for the 2017-2019 triennium.
Jorge Brito Pereira, Isabel dos Santos' longstanding lawyer, is also a member of BFA's governing bodies in his capacity as chairman of the General Meeting's board and is also one of the business facilitators exposed by the 'Luanda Leaks' research.
On the other hand, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) appeared in the bank's most recent report as an external auditor, but the consultant announced, on Monday, that she had ceased her service contracts with companies controlled by the entrepreneur, following news from the International Research Journalism Consortium (ICIJ) based on over 715 thousand files.
The 'Luanda Leaks' details financial schemes of the businesswoman and her husband that have allowed them to divert money from the Angolan public treasury, using tax havens, allegations that Isabel dos Santos considers "completely unfounded".
Mário Leite da Silva replaced Fernando Ulrich on 5 January 2017, soon after the Banco Português de Investimento (BPI) completed the sale of 2 per cent of BFA to Unitel, and the operator now controls the bank.
"As a result of this transfer, the holdings of Banco BPI and Unitel in BFA became 48.1 per cent and 51.9 per cent, respectively", reads the information sent by BPI on 5 January 2017 to the Securities Market Commission (CMVM).
As a consequence of the deal, Fernando Ulrich and José Pena do Amaral resigned as Chairman and member of BFA's Board of Directors.
On 13 December 2016, at the second attempt, BPI's shareholders approved the partial sale of BFA, the latter losing control of the bank it founded at the end of the 1990s.
In September of that year, BPI's management, led by Artur Santos Silva and Fernando Ulrich, had proposed the sale of 2 per cent of BFA to Unitel, for 28 million euros, an operation presented as the "only solution" for BPI to comply with the European Central Bank's requirements to reduce exposure to the market, where Frankfurt understood that banking supervision is not equivalent to European supervision.
