According to Nelson Pestana "Bonavena", vice-president of the Democratic Bloc, a party that forms part of UNITA and the political project PRA JA Servir Angola, the United Patriotic Front (FPU) political platform, created in the 2022 general elections, "the country will never had indicators as low as they are now."
"Never have poverty and misery been as glaring as they are now. Never has the country been plagued by so many crises: political crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis, social crisis, food crisis, moral crisis", highlighted Nelson Pestana when presenting the Bloc's position Democratic over the State of the nation in Angola.
Nelson Pestana highlighted that the crisis the country is experiencing is structural and not circumstantial, so "it is not enough to blame the international political situation [covid-19, the war in Ukraine and now the Israel/Hamas conflict] to justify the inability to respond concrete solutions to the problems of the country and Angolans".
"Political instability can be seen in the conflict situation in Cabinda and Lundas, which the executive pretends does not exist. The country therefore lacks a realistic policy of attacking internal problems and not the demagoguery of permanent excuses for problems foreigners", he stressed.
The vice-president of the Democratic Bloc defended the immediate adoption of the 0 percent VAT measure for basic food products, schooling expenses and medicines, especially those necessary to combat endemic and chronic diseases.
"Angolans are suffocating. They have already tightened their belts to the bone! It is not enough to expand the tax base, it is also necessary to make it of higher quality. It is unavoidable to promote a policy of good wages. It is not possible to stabilize the accounts by removing price subsidies, modernizing the economy by reducing jobs and promoting national development with poverty wages", he expressed.
The Democratic Bloc also defends a more balanced distribution of capital gains between capital and labor, supporting the demand of Angolan unions who propose a minimum wage equivalent to 300 dollars, a gradual review and harmonization of public service salaries and the attribution of differentiated subsidies for public servants in the interior.
In addition to the 10 percent reduction in Labor Income Tax (IRT), Nelson Pestana said that the Government needs to create a training unemployment benefit, in which the unemployed are included in a training program and paid during that phase.
Regarding local elections, the Democratic Bloc considers them absolutely necessary, having also expressed its support for the process of dismissal of the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, presented by the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), "as a sanitary measure and indicative of the emergence of a serious country capable of overcoming the obstacles that a small political elite imposes on the country".
