The problem was mentioned by ADRA's general director, Carlos Cambuta, at the opening of the National Conference on Local Authorities and Community Development in Angola, held with the aim of promoting a space for reflection and knowledge sharing on the municipal process.
Angola had planned to hold the first local elections in 2020, however, the intention did not materialize, for several reasons, among them the covid-19 pandemic, according to the Angolan Government.
In his speech, Cambuta said that ADRA is implementing two projects of municipal civic education, with financial support from the European Union and Hanns Seidel Foundation, both reaching 6335 people with electoral capacity, in 14 municipalities of the provinces of Huambo, Benguela, Bié, Cuando Cubango, Luanda and Malanje.
According to Cambuta, during the civic education sessions, which take place through lectures, seminars, workshops, municipal conferences, and simulations on how to vote, among other forms, "enormous questions have been raised about the process of establishing local authorities in Angola, without, however, receiving satisfactory answers from the facilitators, due to its complexity".
Carlos Cambuta listed questions such as what is the state of play regarding local government in the country, namely what has been done, what is being done, what remains to be done, what is the timeline leading to the implementation of local government in the country, in what specific aspect eligible citizens can help.
"In our opinion, these questions demonstrate, on one hand, the anxiety and the will of citizens to participate in the construction of steps leading to the country's autarquias, but, on the other hand, they show the scarcity of information about the ongoing process," said the ADRA general director.
For Carlos Cambuta, "this fact not only discourages the exercise of citizenship, but also opens space for speculations, which should be avoided because of the implications they may cause to the process," he said.
In turn, the Secretary of State for Local Authorities, Márcio Daniel, in his opening speech, said that several laws have already been prepared by the Angolan executive, which were submitted to the National Assembly, and some have already been approved, all of them by consensus, highlighting the "spirit of collaborative openness in the process of their approval.
"They were preceded by a broad public consultation process, which allowed the introduction of a set of attributes in the proposed laws that derived directly from the contribution of citizens and their participation in the drafting process," the governor said in statements broadcast by Angolan public radio.
Márcio Daniel pointed out that, from the point of view of the infrastructures necessary for the functioning of the local authorities, the government disbursed, through the Angolan Sovereign Fund, a sum of two billion dollars "to allow a set of initiatives to emerge at the level of the municipalities, whether central or local, which will give more life to the municipalities".
