"We are in a very perilous situation," Manuel Alves da Rocha told Lusa, thus summarizing the conclusions of the economic report of Angola (2019-2020), produced by the Centre for Studies and Scientific Research (CEIC) of the Catholic University of Angola, of which he is coordinator.
"Now with the next elections, next year, I don't know how the political parties will access the Budget to finance their campaigns, how the MPLA itself will access the General State Budget to finance its campaign," said the economist.
"It is clear that, at this point in time, other ways to finance the electoral campaign must have already been found, but this may have repercussions on the budget deficit itself, although with the presence of the IMF, of course, the use of the OGE to finance the electoral campaign may be relatively limited," he stressed.
The CEIC director also pointed out that the Executive's economic policies have not been translated into results, pointing to indicators such as the poverty rate, the unemployment rate, and inflation as evidence of poor performance.
"Ultimately, the effectiveness of plans and policies is measured through concrete results and these are not appearing, for now," said the academic, noting that CEIC's forecasts point to the prevalence of recession still in 2021, as in the five previous years," the economist advanced.
"These are results, and in the face of these facts, there is no way to delude ourselves, no way to invent jargon already for the next elections, which gives the feeling that they have a positive report to present to the country and its people. There's no point in boasting when the results don't exist," said Alves da Rocha.
As for the sustainability of the public debt, he declared that it can be seen from several angles and according to a set of criteria that are dynamic, emphasizing the importance of the oil sector in this equation, as the executive recently admitted.
Alves da Rocha lamented, on the other hand, that the challenge of education continues to be postponed, despite an increase in the budget component dedicated to the sector, still far from meeting international criteria.
"What matters is not to increase spending on health and education but to improve their effectiveness and efficiency and this involves reorganizing these sectors," the researcher stressed.
The Angola Economic Report 2019-2020, produced by the CEIC of the Catholic University of Angola contains economic forecasts, addresses structural problems and risks of the Angolan economy, the role of agriculture and manufacturing, the banking situation, unemployment, issues such as globalization, exports and access to Financial Markets, etc.
