In an interview with Televisao Pública de Angola (TPA), João Lourenço underlined that the fight against corruption, which he elected as the flag of his first term, is not over and recalled that "many have benefited from this process" that the country "has lived for many years and lives still somehow".
He highlighted that this process required "courage" and that it had consequences.
"There are those who have interpreted this as if it had created a division within the party, that is not what happened. It cannot be accepted that people who are involved in corruption represent a large slice of the party, they do not", stressed João Lourenço, noting that there were also those who saw in this fight a predictable defeat for the MPLA.
"That didn't happen either, the MPLA won the elections [general, held in August this year] and we will continue".
The chief executive and president of the MPLA underlined that he could have been in a comfortable situation to continue what he found, "but if he did, he would have done a very bad service to the country, since the money from corruption would not serve for the development of the country ".
With the recovered assets, he said, it was possible to move forward with an Integrated Program of Intervention in the Municipalities worth 2 billion dollars, which allowed for important investments to be made.
He admits that corruption still exists in Angola today, but to a lesser extent, since people who know that there is no impunity and if they are discovered have to answer to justice.
João Lourenço devalued, on the other hand, the defeat suffered by the MPLA in Luanda, the most populous province and capital of the country, in the last electoral act, because it was a general election and the results that had in each province or each municipality did not count.
"You only lose in a province if the elections are local, which was not the case", he observed.
He also stated that the MPLA is not afraid of having bad results when local authorities are established because "the party will have to fight to have good results in all the municipalities where local authorities are in place".
"It has yet to be defined whether we are going to do it in the country's 164 municipalities or if it is going to be in phases, but the party has to fight to win the greatest possible number of municipalities. We will fight equally for each municipality that is in dispute", said the ruler.
João Lourenço said he would like to strengthen the strategic partnership with the US with greater direct investment, to help diversify the economy and industrialize the country, a message he intends to take to President Biden in December, at the time of the next US-Africa Leaders Summit , which will take place in Washington D.C.
About the initiative, he hopes that this "is not just one more, but a different summit with results in the medium and long term".
"We are going to tell President Biden that America should bet more on our continent, which has a very great potential. With the situation Europe is experiencing today, I think it would be the ideal time to look at our continent with different eyes", stressed the head of state.
