According to a note published on his website, the deputies considered that the economist meets the legally required requirements and emphasize his suitability, technical competence, knowledge and management capacity.
The so far deputy governor was heard this Friday by the deputies of the 5th and 1st specialized work commissions of the National Assembly, who approved his appointment in a joint opinion report, which will be sent to the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, with 24 votes in favour, five abstentions and no votes against.
The candidate for governor of the BNA, who is expected to replace José de Lima Massano, now Minister of State for Economic Coordination, was optimistic, despite the reservations of the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
At the end of the hearing by the deputies, which lasted for almost two hours, in declarations to the press, he reiterated that his medium and long term objective is, initially, to promote inflation around 10 percent and, later, to reach the of around 6 percent inflation, for Angola to be in line with the macroeconomic convergence indicators of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
"The other objective, which is the second main mission of the BNA, is the stability of the national financial system and obviously here there is also a set of measures that will be taken to make our financial system solid and capable of carrying out its main role, which has to do with the support it must provide to the economy through the granting of credit, that is the essential thing", he summarized.
Asked if he is looking forward to his appointment, Manuel Dias, who temporarily took over the role of governor of the BNA, after Lima Massano left, replied that he is optimistic.
"I am a BNA staff member, I know that this has been generating a lot of expectations both at the level of the bank itself, but above all at the level of society. I understand that we have senior staff at the BNA, including staff who have already been provide support to other institutions, whether of the State or in other institutions and, obviously, at a time like this I have to be optimistic, because my desideratum has always been to work for the good of Angola, above all for the good of the Angolan population", he stressed.
UNITA parliamentary group deputy Mihaela Weba said that she was not satisfied with the objective of "maintaining the floating exchange rate policy, which will significantly penalize Angolan citizens".
"We think that the national bank has responsibilities, because we could adopt other mechanisms to make our currency strong, namely the issue of gold reserves. I was waiting for the candidate for governor to come up with innovative ideas to effectively improve competition of our kwanza and that didn't do it", she said.
"We will continue to have a devalued kwanza, a dysfunctional economy and it is the governor that we will have, unfortunately", said Mihaela Weba, noting that "from an academic point of view, the candidate has parchments to be in the position in which he is nominated".
"However, let's not forget that, from 2016 to 2023, he has been the deputy governor of the BNA and, therefore, if the BNA policy has failed, he also has his fingerprints on it", underlined the deputy, emphasizing that " clearly" there is no way for the UNITA parliamentary group to "validate" his appointment.
"Taking into account the history of the national bank and the policy, both monetary and exchange rate, that the BNA decided to adopt does not favor Angola, does not favor Angolans and, therefore, cannot have the endorsement of the UNITA parliamentary group, there is no vote to confidence", she stressed.
Manuel da Cruz Neto, MP from the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) parliamentary group, said that the hearing aimed at knowledge in terms of the candidate's technical and human capacity.
"We noticed that he is a candidate who has been working at the National Bank of Angola since 1997, many years ago, and has always assumed positions of responsibility (...) in such a way that, in principle, he would give us guarantees that would perform well in its new functions", pointed out the deputy of the majority party.
Born on February 2, 1967, in Cuanza Norte, Manuel António Tiago Dias holds a Master's Degree in Economic Sciences from the University of Bordeaux, in France. He joined the BNA in 1997, where he held various roles until his appointment, in 2016, as deputy governor, a role he held until this year (2023), before being appointed to the recent role of interim governor of the BNA.
