The position was expressed by the Minister of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, Diamantino de Azevedo, who attended the seventh ordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers of ADPA, which evaluated and made decisions on the management of the organization.
The minister, cited in a statement from the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Oil and Gas, stressed that ADPA is facing a multifaceted and deep crisis, whose solution, in Angola's opinion, "is through the continuity of the reforms of the organization, the salary burden of ADPA officials, the continuity or not of the current secretariat and the strategy to be adopted so that members honor their obligations.
"The Republic of Angola considers that decision making on the issues I have just listed is fundamental to define our continuity in ADPA," the minister stressed.
According to the note, the head of the Angolan delegation defended that the affiliation of Botswana, one of the main African diamond producers, to ADPA be ensured as "a challenge of the association".
Diamantino de Azevedo said that if appropriate measures are found and implemented to overcome the constraints found, Angola maintains its willingness to continue to host the headquarters of ADPA.
The meeting approved the termination of the mandate of the secretary general, suspended since January 2020, the Angolan Edgar de Carvalho, and the extension, for six months, of the mandate of the two members of the interim management committee of the executive secretariat, with Namibia passing the chairmanship of ADPA to Tanzania for a year.
ADPA, formed in 2006, with headquarters in Angola, also has as member-states the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, South Africa, Mali, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Gabon and Tanzania.
Last year, the head of the Angolan diplomacy, Téte António, said that the Portuguese-speaking country was evaluating the benefits of joining several international organizations, with which it spends 100 million dollars annually, without any great value for the country.
