"The future of our children is threatened with this Budget, Angolan families will not be able to withstand this Budget, strikes will multiply, despair will take up residence in Angola and no one will want to invest here", said this Wednesday the president of parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), Liberty Chiyaka.
In his political declaration, presented this Wednesday in the plenary discussion session in general of the proposal for the General State Budget (OGE) for the 2024 economic year, the politician said that next year's Budget "is dangerous".
Because, he maintained, "it is not based on reality and its execution, as has been practice, will not comply with the principles of transparency, good governance and accountability, as required by article 104 of the Constitution of the Republic of Angola".
For UNITA, the supervision of the 2024 OGE by the National Assembly and the Court of Auditors "will also be obstructed, because the State is captured and has a power that overlaps with other powers".
The Government forecasts Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of 2.8 percent in 2024, reflecting growth in the non-oil sector at a rate of 4.6 percent, and inflation of around 5.3 percent in the same year.
The projections of the Angolan economy for the economic year 2024 are described in the report justifying the OGE proposal for 2024, which sets expenses and estimates global revenues valued at 24.7 billion kwanzas and highlights that oil production, including gas production, this year it should fall 2.6 percent.
"With this Budget, in 2024 family life will get worse, unemployment will increase, the price of gasoline may rise again, the kwanza will devalue even more, the price of food will continue to rise and those who divert money from people for their own benefit will continue to steal", pointed out Chiyaka.
According to the parliamentary leader of UNITA, the three priorities of the Angolan executive listed in the OGE 2024 proposal, namely "further strengthening family income, investing more in companies and the economy and making the OGE more sustainable", will not be achieved "because the assumptions are not realistic".
"The country is bankrupt and the Government does not comply with the law", he said.
In this OGE, the authorities propose a salary increase for public function to 5 percent, which for UNITA it will not be possible to achieve "because prices are expected to rise by 15 percent in 2024".
UNITA also criticized the country's current public debt, considering that paying late debts to companies, "hidden debts, false debts and uncertified debts is not an investment".
"Capitalizing bankrupt banks to channel public state funds into government officials' private projects is certainly not a fair and legitimate investment in the economy", he stressed.
The leader also highlighted that almost 60 percent of the 2024 OGE is for debt service, but, he pointed out, the Government "does not present the medium-term debt strategy to the National Assembly and does not accept an audit of the public debt".
The politician also said that the Budget being discussed in parliament "does not belong to the Angolans, but rather the debt of the regime".
"This is the Budget that allows more embezzlement, more corruption and less accountability. This Budget promotes regional inequalities and asymmetries", he said.
He even considered that the OGE for 2024 contemplates the" distribution of everyone's resources between a few, between supporters of the party-State, friends, collaborators, commentators and sycophants of the regime" and the majority, namely school meals, agriculture, health, scientific research and innovation, receives "crumbs".
He also defended that the Budget must be at the service of people's prosperity, happiness and dignity, at the service of democracy, freedom and reconciliation "and not at the service of repression, fear, coercion of freedoms, arrests of young people who dream of living in freedom".
The Budget "should no longer be at the service of the autocratic State, the persecution of political opponents, activists, journalists and worthy citizens. The Budget should no longer be at the service of promoting hatred, exclusion, inequalities and injustice", concluded Liberty Chiyaka.
