For Costa Silva, born in the Angolan central highlands, founder and member of the Amilcar Cabral committees, which supported the MPLA and contested the colonial regime, Angola is going through a difficult period, 45 years after its independence, "with very serious risks of political and social instability".
"The combination of declining oil revenues, deteriorating economic conditions in the country, expectations that may not be met, or not fully met, in the fight against corruption, creates a toxic combination," explained the manager, author of the base document for the Portuguese economy's recovery plan for 2020-2030 and an oil specialist.
This is a context in which the President of the Republic needs "not only resilience and resistance, but some tears in terms of domestic politics, which if left unchecked can lead to great social and political instability," he argued.
For Costa Silva, these "tears" are "managing to bring together a political platform to find a way out of the country, to unite the economic 'players' to find ways to diversify the economy, to talk to the opposition parties to bring together wills, to make or activate the national reconciliation commission on all the incidents that the country has experienced in the past, to be a regenerating act and to give a different meaning to the experience that the country has as a community, to give clear signs of transparency, of accountability.
"It is these signs, which come from the leadership, then can change the situation of the country," considered the manager in an interview with Lusa about the 45 years of independence of the country where he was born, which are celebrated on 11.
Now, "if the leadership progressively isolates itself, if it doesn't build these collaborative platforms, if it doesn't manage to aggregate wills", the executive "can quickly lose the rest of the expectations and goodwill that exists in the country", he stressed.
For Costa Silva, President João Lourenço "is a person who came from MPLA itself, knows very well what the situation is, and decided to choose a path," he took a step in "the fight against corruption, which is essential. But "it is evident that the challenges are colossal".
It is necessary "the change of a mental paradigm that exists in the country, which is a surrogate country, which has always lived on the account of oil revenues, without much need to make sacrifices to diversify the economy," warned the manager.
In recent years, Luanda has bet on new oil discoveries in deep waters, in the hope that the Angolan coast would be similar to the Brazilian coast, which did not happen.
"Because of this mistake, the discoveries did not occur and oil production began to decline. Last year it was around 1.37 million barrels per day, when in 2015 it almost reached 1.8 million barrels per day, so it is a decline of 24 percent in four to five years," he added.
For the manager, who is also president of the oil company Partex, "this clearly shows that the future of Angola cannot be oil.
So it will be "very important that when the economy reactivates and [oil] prices recover, we use those revenues to diversify the economy and develop other sectors, like agriculture, which is absolutely fundamental for the country. Angola imports most of the food it consumes, which is a paradox in itself, because it has soils that are extremely rich," he pointed out.
