The legal diploma, which was approved with 181 votes in favor, eight against the Wide Convergence of Salvation of Angola - Electoral Coalition (CASA-CE) and without abstentions, is the initiative of the executive and aims to introduce the figure of the 'Golden Shares '.
With 'Golden Shares' or privileged shares, the State now has special powers to guarantee strategic interests in companies, without jeopardizing its operation.
In his explanation of vote, André Mendes de Carvalho "Miau", deputy and leader of CASA-CE, the second largest political force in the opposition, said that, although he understands the need for the State to safeguard its strategic interests in the public business sector, the law represents an excess, as it reserves to the State, even if it is a minority partner, "the right to interfere and even prohibit, through the 'Golden Shares', the appointment of a part of the administrators, including that of the Chairman of the Board of Directors, as well as the redefinition of society's strategy ".
"On the other hand, it is our understanding that this discourages investment, we also think that the State has other ways to defend the public interest and all of this leaves us in the uncertainty of knowing, after all, in which economic and financial system we are in. ", he said.
For his part, deputy Amílcar Culela, of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), stressed that the party he represents always advocated a more realistic market economy and not one based on a system of state capitalism, based mainly on oligopolies and monopolies, financed essentially by the state, in which large and medium-sized private and public-private companies, alongside state-owned companies, are dominant and distorting the real functioning of the economy.
"With the approval of this law, what the Angolan Commercial Companies Act provides for in its article 26, when prescribing special rights in favor of a partner, in this case the State", he said, stressing that article 336 Of the aforementioned law gives the state privileged powers that the new law intends to unequivocally clarify, with the introduction of the addition to the existing law the figure of 'Golden Shares', an unprecedented concept in the legal system.
The deputy of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), Salomão Xirimbimbi, stressed that the market economy is not synonymous with the absence of the need to protect and defend national interests.
According to Salomão Xirimbimbi, the creation of this mechanism will allow not only companies to be privatized, the State or other public entities to transmit corporate control to the private sector, but at the same time can intervene in strategic sectors for the national economy , thus caring for the superior national interest.
In presenting the proposed law, at the time of voting in general, Finance Minister Vera Daves said that the State or other public entities intend to have privileged shares or special rights, resulting from the ownership of 'Golden Shares', ensuring that deliberations regarding certain matters, namely the definition of the organic structure of the companies, alteration of the company's strategy or other matters to be agreed by the partners are subject to confirmation by one of the administrators appointed by the State or public entity.
