The US-based group Human Rights Watch today released a report concluding the government of Angola has not done enough to combat pervasive corruption and mismanagement. Angolans were not seeing their lives improve accordingly to the country’s oil-driven economic growth, the report said.
The 31-page report documents how the Luanda government took only limited steps to improve transparency after the group in a 2004 report had disclosed that billions of dollars in oil revenue illegally bypassed the central bank and disappeared without explanation. The report details newly disclosed evidence of corruption and mismanagement.
"The government needs to take strong action to combat the corruption and secrecy that undermine Angolans’ rights," said Arvind Ganesan, director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "Here is a nation with a wealth of resources while its people live in poverty."
The human rights group said that a recent agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), enacted in the wake of the global financial crisis and drop in the price of oil, however had offered some hope for improvement if its provisions are carried out.
"The government has improved the publication of oil revenue figures," the report says, but human indicators in Angola remained "abysmal and have not been commensurate with the rapid growth in Angola’s national wealth." Angola is the largest producer of oil in sub-Saharan Africa, yet millions of Angolans have limited access to basic social services.
Angola ranked 143rd out of 182 countries in the UN Development Programme’s Human Development Index. Angola’s ranking in Transparency International’s 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index is growing worse, from 158th out of 180 countries in 2008 down to 162nd in 2009.
Source: Afrol News