The law expert and researcher at the University of Oxford, who will publish a new book entitled 'Angola at the Crossroads. Between Kleptocracy and Development '(Angola at a crossroads.
Between Cleptocracy and Development) in March, he considers that the fight against corruption, the banner of President João Lourenço, started in an appropriate and very focused manner, contrary to what happens now where it is "atomized".
Rui Verde defends, therefore, that the processes linked to the ex-vice president Manuel Vicente, family of Santos and the Angolan generals, must have some temporal simultaneity because the issues are interconnected.
"If you don't, you lose track of the anti-corruption strategy," he said.
On the other hand, the population must feel the benefits of this fight. "A part of the money that has already been recovered should be visibly invested in benefits for the population and in this part [João Lourenço] is failing, there is talk of recoveries, but the result is not yet seen," he told Lusa.
For the academic, the head of state must correct these two aspects, promoting a more systematic fight against corruption and dealing with some "networked" cases, in addition to showing palpable results "of the famous millions" already recovered, in terms of improvement for the population life.
Since Joao Lourenço came to power, with corruption as his main banner, members of the Santos family and other leaders linked to the previous president, José Eduardo dos Santos, have been in the crosshairs of justice, leading some analysts to talk about justice selective.
Rui Verde considers that this is a transition phase: "In the Angolan case, corruption is a structural issue that effectively impedes development. The money that goes to corruption does not go to development. At the moment, we are in transition".
On December 29, the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) announced that the State has definitively recovered in cash and property a total of about 5.3 billion dollars and that there are 1522 cases related to economic crime.
Hélder Pitta Gróz explained that among the recovered assets, estimated at US $ 2.6 billion, are invested in housing, offices, buildings, factories, port terminals, shareholdings in companies, among others.
