PGR investigates debt of 439.5 billion kwanzas claimed by company from the government of Cuando Cubango

According to Jornal de Angola, the debt is claimed by the company Angoskima Lda for the supply of various goods to the government of the province of Cuando Cubango between 1992 and 1997, a debt that will have been validated by the local government.

The press reported the fact and questioned the authenticity of the debt, attributing to the current governor of Cuando Cubango, Julio Bessa, alleged embezzlement of these funds in collusion with the company, which, according to the newspaper Valor Económico, was "created only on July 3, 1997" .

According to a certificate consulted by Lusa, the company had José Maria Zeferino and his 10-year-old son, Angélico José Vandra Quiel, as partners at the time it was incorporated.

The government of Cuando Cubango clarified, in a statement, that under the guidance of the Ministry of Finance, on June 21, 2021, the managing partner of the company Angoskimas Lda approached the General Secretariat of that government requesting the issuance of an updated statement of the debt.

The statement said that, according to the company's official, the debt, "which had already been validated in the past by the Ministry of Finance", was valued at 2.9 trillion kwanzas, but "after a serious calculation error was detected. , which inflated the amount", it was reduced to 439.5 billion kwanzas and validated by Júlio Bessa.

"With this accounting rigor, the Provincial Government of Cuando Cubango saved the State's coffers, that is, from the treasury, the undue payment of 2.5 trillion kwanzas", the note reads.
For the Cuando Cubango government, "it is, at the very least, strange and pathetic the conversion of this act of patriotism and good management of public affairs into a scandal and crime of embezzlement/theft, which is pretentiously being attributed to Governor Júlio Bessa, without well-founded reason and causal link with the facts" reported.

The accusations are considered by the Cuando Cubango government as an "ignoble and despicable act, forged in the laboratory by everyone known to be the axis of evil in that province", admitting to proceed with a legal action for the "accountability of the authors" of the "atrocious persecution" of the cadres of that government.

The Ministry of Finance clarifies, in a note, that "it did not grant the debt claim of the company Angoskima Lda, as it was outside the temporal scope of 2013 and 2017, defined by executive decree 507/18 of 20 November , which guided the strategy of regularization of overdue domestic debt".

According to the defined methodology, explains the ministerial body, the complaint was registered, after receiving the certification and approval made by the Provincial Government of Cuando Cubango, as the beneficiary body of the services, "and not by the Minister of Finance, as she does not intervene in the process. of debt certification".

The Ministry of Finance also ensures that the process will be referred to the General Inspectorate of State Administration (IGAE), "taking into account the identified non-conformities".

Lusa tried to contact the company, but it was not possible to find any telephone contacts or Angoskima website.