"There is no supply contract for the shareholder Vidatel with Unitel", says the telecommunications company in a statement sent to Lusa, denying that Isabel dos Santos' company has guaranteed a loan to the company.
The document comes after, on Monday, the businesswoman guaranteed that Unitel SA "owes debts to Vidatel Ltd whose existence is due to reasons solely attributable" to the telecommunications operator.
At issue is, he claims, the lack of repayment, in 2016, of the loan that Unitel obtained from Vidatel, a debt that "is duly registered in Unitel's audited accounts, certified by an external auditor, and recognized and approved by the General Meeting of shareholders for several years ".
Vidatel adds that "it will go under the Law and the shareholders' agreement entered into by the various shareholders of Unitel, to carry out this clarification" with the operator itself.
However, in Unitel's statement, the company rejects "any supply contract by the shareholder Vidatel" and notes that the management report and accounts for the 2019 financial year "were audited and approved at a general meeting held on the 27th July 2020 ".
Unitel recognizes, however, that it has dividends to be paid to shareholders, including Vidatel, but says that the reasons for not transferring these amounts are foreign to it.
"As duly recorded" in the accounts approved this week, the company had, as of December 31, 2019, "a balance of dividends and interest associated to pay to shareholders in the total amount of 622.908 million kwanzas, of which to the shareholder Vidatel has to pay 89,164,341,798 kwanzas ", indicates the company.
The note also states that "the reasons for the non-transfer of said dividends and interest to Vidatel are unrelated to Unitel", also recalling the restrictions resulting from the arrest order present in an order issued by the provincial court of Luanda in December 2019.
Unitel's Board of Directors, which took office in May 2019, says that "it has worked to ensure that shareholders are treated equally under the law" and that "it has provided all relevant information to its shareholders".
Unitel also adds that in the accounts approved on July 27, it registered that it has an "amount receivable equivalent to US $ 405 million from Unitel Internacional Holdings BV., A company without participation by Unitel and owned by engineer Isabel dos Santos".
According to the company, this figure refers to "loans granted by Unitel in the years 2012 and 2013". "Such amounts have not yet been paid and the current Board of Directors of Unitel has acted in order to seek the due payment of interest and principal of such contracts", the note underlines.
Until January this year, Unitel was controlled by four shareholders, each with 25 percent: PT Ventures (owned by Brazilian Oi), state oil company Sonangol, Vidatel (owned by Isabel dos Santos) and Geni ( General Leopoldino "Dino" Fragoso do Nascimento).
Sonangol made the full purchase of PT Ventures for US $ 1 billion on 26 January, becoming the operator's largest shareholder.
In December of last year Luanda, the Luanda court decreed the preventive seizure of accounts and shareholdings of Isabel dos Santos, her husband Sindika Dokolo, and her manager Mário Filipe Moreira Leite da Silva, former chairman of the Board of Directors of Banco de Fomento de Angola (BFA).
Among the companies that were subject to the foreclosure of the holdings, Unitel is included.
