According to the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Instituto de Gestão de Astivos e Participações do Estado (IGAPE), Patrício Vilar, for this year the privatization of 63 assets/companies and the placement on the stock exchange of TV Cabo, Sonangalp, Banco Angolano de Investment (BAI) and Caixa Angola bank.
Speaking to the Lusa agency, Patrício Vilar stressed that in addition to the legislative factor, the process of restructuring companies is also at stake, in the cases of state-owned Sonangol, an oil company, and Endiama, a diamond company, "which have not yet found the appropriate strategy for sectoral restructuring, more than the company itself".
"For example, it was noted that, both in oil and in the diamond sector, that since the activity in agencies became autonomous, they are still trying to restructure themselves, to find their way, therefore, this is not too soon, it could take some time. two to three years, because there are precedent actions, including from the point of view of the energy sector. They have to understand what the path will be, because the whole world is in a deep restructuring", said Patrício Vilar.
The head of IGAPE stressed that in the case of the national airline, TAAG, the reasons "are more obvious", referring to the current world economic situation, greatly affected by the covid-19 pandemic.
"Airlines are on the ground, no one is going to buy an airline to be at a loss the next day," he stressed.
In this sense, Patrício Vilar continued, for these three large companies "are postponed until the next term".
"Then, yes, it is our ambition that, given their size, that they can come to the stock market. We will do everything for that, but it is still premature to be committing to this", he added.
Patrício Vilar stressed that the current Government maintains its commitment to privatization, namely of these three strategic companies for the country, but in a partial and minority way, "it was never intended, at least in the two in the mining and oil sector, to have a majority".
"That intention remains, then you will see, the government that comes will keep it or not, but this executive maintains this commitment, but no longer in this mandate. Objectively, none of the companies [TAAG, Sonangol and Endiama] in 2022, because the prior actions that are needed, not only in companies, but even in the sectors themselves, take a long time", he underlined.
In 2019, Angola started the Program for Integral and Partial Privatization of Public Companies (Propriv), with a list of 195 assets, to which another 16 were added and, later, 71 were withdrawn, totaling 140 companies.
The president of IGAPE explained that, of the 71 companies removed, about 35 were not, in fact, but simply postponed in the privatization process.
"In the 35, there are other circumstances, there are companies that are in legal proceedings, within the scope of the seizure of assets and these legal proceedings are not finished, for example, the case of Cimangola. definitive and as long as there is no certainty about these properties, they cannot be sold", he indicated.
"There are 16 that were added, either because there was no visibility about them and they started to have it or because, in the context of asset recovery, there is a figure called voluntary surrender, and from the moment voluntary surrender immediately passed to the sphere of the State and these can now be privatized", explained the official.
At present, 73 privatizations were carried out, corresponding to 52.1 percent of the program's level of execution, mostly in the industrial sector (28), followed by the agro-industry sector (17), with 67 processes in progress.
Of the privatized companies, 54 were awarded to Angolan companies, 41 are operational and 32 are in the start-up phase.
In terms of financial execution, the amount contracted totals around 850.1 billion kwanzas, with the amount received being 469.6 billion kwanzas and 380.5 billion kwanzas to be received.
In 2021, the privatization of 35 assets/companies was concluded, with emphasis on the Bank of Commerce and Industry (BCI) and 24 assets via electronic auction, with a total collected of 444 billion kwanzas.
