Lusa found out on the spot that the infrastructured property, located in the municipality of Calumbo, municipality of Viana, in Luanda, is in an apparent state of abandonment and is far from the housing area of the county.
On the site, where it is accessed through a single road with asphalt in degradation, is a construction site already set up where some men circulate and machines are visible assigned to Casais Group, contractors who will rehabilitate the infrastructure, built about eight years ago, in order to give life to that space, according to information collected by Lusa.
The rehabilitation works of the enterprise with close to 200 houses, in bad condition and with visible cracks, despite the grass that surrounds them, should start at any time, said the sources contacted by Lusa.
The company Dar is responsible for the supervision of the work, whose technicians are also already doing the initial work in that complex of residences south of the capital.
The government's decision to acquire the development in an investment of approximately 25 million dollars was known in early May.
According to the presidential decree, signed by João Lourenço, who authorized the expenditure, delegating the procedures to the Ministry of Finance, the decision aims to make up for "the insufficiency of adequate infrastructure, at national level, to respond to serious public health calamities and pandemics, of unpredictable occurrence".
However, the deal has been controversial because of the high price attributed to the houses, allegedly much higher than their market value, as well as the fact that they are supposed to belong to an advisor to the Minister of State and head of the Security House of the President of the Republic.
Lusa has questioned the Government about who owns the development, but has not obtained clarification.
The most recent criticism came from the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), through its shadow government, which on Tuesday questioned at a press conference the purchase of houses that will cost the state coffers 124,000 dollars each.
"The houses in question are low-income and their real market value is only eight million kwanzas," contested the main opposition party, indicating that it had asked for an assessment from independent experts "who estimate that the houses are being overcharged.
UNITA also said that the information circulating indicates that the houses belong to the advisor to the Minister of State and head of the Security House of the President of the Republic, who is also "coordinator of the intersectoral commission for the fight against covid-19".
"In other words, the owner of the houses is part of the restricted portfolio of presidential security," he denounced.
The party asked if this is how President João Lourenço will "fight corruption, nepotism, embezzlement, favouritism, cabritism and influence peddling" and who has advised the President of the Republic to proceed with direct adjudication instead of public tender.
Makuta Nkondo, an independent deputy of the Angola-Coligação Ampla de Salvação Eleitoral (CASA-CE), heard by the Voice of America (VOA), also considered the price paid as "a theft" and defended that President João Lourenço is badly accompanied and that "as long as he is with the current auxiliaries the system will remain corrupt".
Gaspar dos Santos, Youth Secretary of the Social Renewal Party (PRS), who visited the houses, declared to the VOA that the prices show a clear overbilling and defended the "repeal of the decree that authorizes its acquisition" for being "a real robbery".
