The daughter of ex-president José Eduardo dos Santos, who was chairman of the Board of Directors (PCA) of Sonangol for about 18 months and is accused of alleged mismanagement and embezzlement of funds at the oil company, spoke to MFM radio in an interview centered on the times in which he led the company, between June 2016 and November 2017, a period in which he claims to have identified and tried to solve several problems.
The businesswoman also stressed that she presented the diagnosis to the executive at the time, chaired by José Eduardo dos Santos, having also informed the then presidential candidate João Lourenço, who would later exonerate her, lamenting that after the departure of his team they returned to Sonangol people and firms allegedly involved in the schemes that hurt the company.
Isabel dos Santos said she accepted the invitation to "save Sonangol" who was in a pre-bankruptcy situation, knowing that there was a "political price" to pay, but with a "mission spirit".
One of the tasks he took on was to "fight corruption" that existed at Sonangol, to identify where the money was going and why the oil company was losing so much money, having realized that there was an over-invoicing in several contracts.
"The costs were not those of the market. Since then, we have made many cuts and what amazes me is that after my exoneration a large part of these contracts that I had already canceled were renewed again, some with the same companies or if not with the same companies, with the same people, who created new companies and always at the same very high prices ", he declared.
José Eduardo dos Santos' daughter stressed that "the change was not peaceful" and "voices were raised" against what was being done, but that it was necessary.
Among the cases of over-invoicing were insurance contracts signed with the insurance company AAA, owned by businessman Carlos São Vicente, who this week was accused by the Attorney General's Office on suspicion of embezzlement and money laundering, among other crimes, one of which its bank accounts, where 900 million dollars are deposited, has been frozen by the Swiss authorities.
According to Isabel dos Santos, it was concluded that Sonangol could save 70 percent with insurance and signed a new contract "with much lower values", with another company.
"If I am surprised that there are bank accounts with so much money? I am not surprised and I think that it should not be the only bank account of people linked to Sonangol who has a lot of money and this should not be the only case," he stressed.
Sonangol's former PCA says there were between $ 400 million and $ 500 million a year to be paid for oil insurance, which over the ten years that the state oil company has partnered with AAA means potential losses in total 4 or $ 5 billion.
Added to this amount are losses as a shareholder, as Sonangol was at the origin of the creation of AAA, a stake "that has been diluted over time" but whose compensation has not been demonstrated, he said.
"The accounts are not transparent, I do not know if they were presented, I never saw them," said Isabel dos Santos, defending the need for an audit of the accounts of AAA and Sonangol.
"If those 900 million, almost a billion dollars in that account are dividends from AAA, how much did Sonangol earn from dividends in relation to AAA and why did Sonangol not follow the capital increases and let itself be diluted, if the business was good ", he asked.
Isabel dos Santos says she has no doubts that many of the media campaigns that she considers to be manufactured against her are due to the "courage to stop many of these contracts" and "harmful practices" that were not beneficial for either the company or the shareholders, nor for Angolans.
"There were several people linked to Sonangol who benefit from these types of schemes. When we ended this type of contract, we irritated a lot of people and ended up being exonerated", he stressed.
The businesswoman insisted that the fight against corruption in Angola "is selective, it is political, some targets were chosen" and stressed that an audit to Sonangol to detect "who benefited from these contracts" would be welcome.
Isabel dos Santos pointed out that while at Sonangol she resorted to external consultants to carry out a "thorough" audit, having been criticized for bringing "outsiders, which she considered necessary to know" who was in the scheme and who was not.
These reports, he guaranteed, were presented to the executive and to João Lourenço, then candidate for the Presidency of the Republic.
"I was hopeful that after I had informed them about these issues that there would be continuity, that something would be done. It was with great amazement that I saw, after we were exonerated that the team that returned was the same and some of these people were involved in some of the cases that we have detected and informed the MPLA Political Bureau ", he pointed out, pointing to Sonair, Sonip and Sonangol's real estate, among the problem areas.
Another of the "more opaque" areas was trading, that is, the sale of crude oil, a situation that Isabel dos Santos said has not changed.
"There was very little information and I think it is still opaque, the lack of transfer seems to be continuing, it is September and so far Sonangol has not presented accounts," he noted.
Isabel dos Santos, who replaced Carlos Saturnino as president of the executive committee of Sonangol Pesquisa & Produção, was subsequently replaced by him in the chairmanship of the Board of Directors, who requested an audit of the management of his predecessor. Carlos Saturnino was meanwhile exonerated, in May 2019, and the oil company is currently led by Gaspar Martins.
Isabel dos Santos is in the sights of justice, having seen several of her bank accounts, assets and stakes in companies arrested in Angola and Portugal.
