Addressing business leaders at the Coin Museum in Luanda, the US Secretary of State said that "in Angola the damage from corruption is quite clear" and that he addressed the issue during his meeting with the President, João Lourenço, and his counterpart, Manuel Augusto.
Insisting that corruption is "the enemy of a nation's growth and progress", Mike Pompeo noted that Angola has been "hostage" to these practices for a long time and encouraged the continuation of the reform agenda that João Lourenço established to foster more business and the return of financial institutions.
"We will do our part to help Angolans achieve prosperity," said Pompeo, in an intervention released by the US State Department, listing several initiatives to support investment.
Among these, the US governor addressed the Prosper Africa initiative to boost trade and investment and noted that the US and Angola are restarting the dialogue on energy, which will resume in June.
He also noted that the US helped Angolan electricity companies in 2019 to prepare for an African Development Bank (ADB) loan of 530 million dollars to interconnect electricity networks, and that they have a significant presence in the "growing" energy sector.
An example of this is the two billion dollars announced by a consortium for a natural gas project, which "will benefit American companies, but also the Angolan people," he noted.
Pompeo also spoke about the new Development Finance Corporation, with about a month and a half, an initiative focused on attracting private investment in developing countries in key sectors such as agriculture, infrastructure and energy.
"Much of the 60 billion dollars will be available in Africa," he said.
The US official said that the mission of increasing financial transparency and fighting corruption was "incredibly difficult," but said he trusted Angola, just as the African country should trust US companies that "will be at its side to achieve a level of excellence" in terms of the rule of law and standards.
"We want to be good partners here for the Angolan people and for the transitions that are taking place here in Angola. I know we can achieve this together," he said at the roundtable with business leaders.
Mike Pompeo left Luanda in the middle of this Monday afternoon for Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where he will complete his African tour.
