Dorivaldo Teixeira responded this Monday to questions raised last week by an article in the Financial Times about a creditor subject to sanctions who claimed financial default, as Angola did not pay the financing it benefited from, which led to a lawsuit arbitral.
The Ministry of Finance (Minfin) has refused to reveal which creditor, or group of creditors, was the target of international sanctions and which placed the country in an arbitration process over the debt, the value of which is also not revealed.
Responding to journalists during the presentation of the Annual Debt Plan, the CEO of UGD indicated that in the Base Prospectus published on the London Stock Exchange on December 20, 2024, "possible" information was shared, due to the fact that the the process is still in dispute, and the identification of the creditor can be used against the Angolan State.
"We released the prospectus for the sake of transparency, so that people know what is happening, but it is a risk that is under control," he stressed.
"If the decision is that the State has to pay, we, as a good entity, will create the conditions and we will pay. We are not disclosing the entity for the protection of the State, not disclosing it is the best we can do, even for legal advice that we received", continued the same person in charge.
Dorivaldo Teixeira assured that it was not a 'default' incident: "If you default on a financing line, you will activate a clause that is a 'cross default' clause (default clauses or cross default clauses) and when you activate this clause you don't just resolve the issue of a specific creditor, you have to bring all the creditors to the table to discuss with them and find a solution that is balanced for everyone, this is the case in some countries in the region", he said.
In last week's article, the Financial Times begins by mockingly asking 'who are you, creditor? and adds: "We know you exist, because Angola recently used a prospectus for the issuance of almost two billion dollars in debt securities to bury the unfortunate detail that someone accused the country of 'default'".
The Ministry of Finance reacted to the article by reiterating, in a statement, its commitment "to national and international creditors as set out in the General State Budget" and ended by showing itself to be "confident in the sustainability of its debt" and saying that it "will continue to implement focusing on its debt strategy and its economic diversification plan."
The Finance Ministry's response came after, in recent days, several articles reported on the increase in Angola's cash flow and liquidity difficulties, materialized, for example, in the postponement of the payment of the increase for public employees, from January to March, and the increase of the debt amount by 728 million dollars, until 2030, just a few weeks after an issuance of two billion dollars in exchange for a loan of 400 million dollars.
In November alone, Angola faces a debt payment of 864 million dollars.
Angola will have to pay 6.2 billion dollars in 2025, representing 5.2 percent of GDP, and 5.4 billion dollars in 2026, representing 4.2 percent of GDP, compared to 5.4 billion dollars paid in 2024, says Fitch Ratings in a recent analysis of the Angolan economy, presenting these values as the total debt that will be paid in those years, which includes interest and payments upon maturity of loans.
