A Little More On Isabel dos Santos

I made mention here of Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos. Here's how she got started (the translation is mine):

Isabel dos Santos got her start in business in 1997  [she was 24 at the time] as head of the company Urbana 2000, which holds a monopoly on the cleaning and sanitation business in Luanda with annual contracts of US$10 million. It's owned by Geni, a company founded by Brigadier General Leopoldino Fragosos do Nascimento, the head of communications for the presidency along with some other partners, Anthony Van-Dunem, former secretary of the Council of Ministers, and Manuel Augusto da Fonseca, the head of Legal Affairs for Sonangol [the state oil company]; in conjunction with Portugal telecom, Geni owns 50% of Unitel, the largest mobile phone carrier in Angola.

Some more largess is spread around to the rest of the family and friends (pdf file):

Top of the list of Angola’s fat cats is the family of President José Eduardo dos Santos. Its latest visible acquisition, in January, was Channel Two of the public television service Televisão Pública de Angola (TPA), which should come in handy at election time. The vehicle was the firm Investimentos, where a key figure is Chizé dos Santos, the President’s youngest daughter. She at once handed out a contract to Semba Communications, run by José Avelino Eduardo dos Santos, her brother.

An older daughter, Isabel (AC Vol 49 No 12), is a main shareholder in the Banco Internacional de Crédito and helped set up the GENI group of companies, with interests in banking, oil, diamonds and construction; it also owns Unitel, Angola’s main mobile telephone company, alongside Brigadier Gen. Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento (head of communications in the presidency) and the convicted Angolo-Franco-Brazilian entrepreneur Pierre Falcone (AC Vol 48 No 25).

Isabel also has shares in Sagripek (farms, livestock, agribusiness) with several banks and the Public Works Minister, Gen. Francisco Higino Carneiro. The presidential eldest sister, Marta dos Santos, has shares in the Angolan oil company Prodoil, which is associated with Amec Paragon of Houston, Texas, United States.

Apparently it's a family business. This in a country in which 8.2% of children from six months to five years suffer from acute malnutrition while 29.2 percent have chronic malnutrition caused by inadequate diet and/or infectious disease. In addition 12 million of the 19.7 million Angolans are vulnerable to food crises and 75% of them are women and children.

Comments

[Jamie]

Like the Palin kid's consulting company on a little bit grander scale.

[av2ts]

Again, if you actually have some evidence of nepotism or corrpuption, please share. Until then, I am not sure what your point is with all this.

You and I don't know the first thing about Isabel dos Santos, or anyone else you accused above. All I have been able to find is that she returned from London in the mid 90s after studying business. She opened a few small businesses (including hairdressers I gather) in Angola at a time when no one was investing there. her Urbana 200 company was mentioned as a rare bright spot in this 1999 profile on corruption in Angola. She married one of the richest men in that part of the world and has taken on higher business deals since then. What exactly are you accusing her of?

[Randinho]

It's not her I'm accusing of anything; it's her father.

This is one of the reasons why I don't take you seriously. You ignore credible reports of corruption in Angola, including the one I linked to in the previous thread from Global Integrity and you heap praise upon a president who engages in rampant and pervasive crony and nepotistic capitalism during his thirty years of rule. All while "in a country in which 8.2% of children from six months to five years
suffer from acute malnutrition while 29.2 percent have chronic
malnutrition caused by inadequate diet and/or infectious disease. In
addition 12 million of the 19.7 million Angolans are vulnerable to food
crises and 75% of them are women and children."

I repeated that last part because you chose to ignore it in the original post. The report, by the way is from this year.

You're an apologist and not a serious person.

[Jamie]

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and is now a major shareholder in international banking and natural resource companies after initially opening a hair salon, probably the duck knows some people.

[Randinho]

It's just another form of oligarchic rule in a developing nation. Why someone claiming to be on the left would be supporting it is beyond me.

[av2ts]

Ok Randy, so you are accusing the President of Angola of corruption - not his daughter. Fine, but again I have to ask the obvious: Do you have any proof? Or is simply the fact that Angola gets low marks for transparency from some Western groups (just like pretty much all of their neighbors) that allows you to accuse the President of a crime? If that is your standard, then it is a pretty much wild and meaningless charge, as you'd have to accuse much of African leaders as being corrupt criminals as well.

You say you have provided "credible reports of corruption in Angola" but I saw nothing of the sort. I saw a report that concluded Angola has weak anti-corruption institutions based on a scorecard attempting to hold all nations up to Western standards. But I saw nothing saying there is evidence of a specific corrup act - let alone any accusation against the President.

As I said, I am sure a lot of MPLA connected people got contracts - just as a lot of ANC folks do in South Africa and Democratic Party folks do here in Los Angeles. Improper contracts or whatever ought to be investigated. As Global Integrity acknowledges, Angola now has an independent auditing body covering the entire public sector to do just that (Tribunal de Contas). And as I've said earlier, the IMF (or was it the World Bank) chief of Mission in Angola recently praised the efforts of the Dos Santos Administration for their work on rooting out corruption. Dos Santos himself has made this a central pledge of his Adminstration - calling for "zero tolerance."

You ignore all these things. I think what really pisses me off about this - is that I don't see you going out of your way to dig this sort of stuff about other African nations - only a nominally socialist one. This from a supposed progressive.

In doing my own digging, what appears to be going on is that Angola has a policy that - in its awarding of contracts and privitization schemes (that I don't support, do you?) - Angolan nationals ought to be part of the deal. Most firms getting contracts are joint-enterprises wherein foreign companies bring in the money and local folks partner up to bring the local knowlege (and yes, probably political connections are handy as well). So really you are getting upset that Angolans are benefitting on projects that usually only multinationals or retrograde local elites would benefit on. Good for you Randy, well done!

[Randinho]

But I saw nothing saying there is evidence of a specific corrup act - let alone any accusation against the President.

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

Dos Santos himself has made this a central pledge of his Adminstration - calling for "zero tolerance."

Talk is cheap. Did you even read that article to which you linked?

You ignore all these things. I think what really pisses me off about this - is that I don't see you going out of your way to dig this sort of stuff about other African nations - only a nominally socialist one. This from a supposed progressive.

Spare me your fucking sanctimony. Angola is hardly socialist, but is a hotbed of crony capitalism as I demonstrated in this post, while a substantial number of its young children suffer from acute malnutrition and 61% of its citizens are vulnerable to food crises in a study done this year.

So really you are getting upset that Angolans are benefitting on projects that usually only multinationals or retrograde local elites would benefit on. Good for you Randy, well done!

I'll write this in the official language of Angola: vai tomar no cu! Do you now believe that you are clairvoyant? Don't come here and accuse me of beliefs that you don't know me well enough to think I have. I don't go to your blog and accuse you of being a tool for the Cuban Revolution, even though you are. Get lost.

[av2ts]

There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.

I ask for proof and you come back with nothing, but call me blind for not seeing...

Talk is cheap. Did you even read that article to which you linked?

You ignored the real actions Dos Santos has taken and the fact that the Chief of the IMF in Angola has also recently praised the anti-corruption efforts in Angola (linked in the other post I think). It is not just talk...

Angola is hardly socialist, but is a hotbed of crony capitalism as I demonstrated in this post, while a substantial number of its young children suffer from acute malnutrition...

I agree Angola is hardly socialist, but I have little doubt that your selective obsession has to do with Angola being governed by a socialist, pro-Cuba party.

Don't come here and accuse me of beliefs that you don't know me well enough to think I have.

I wasn't accusing you of wanting multinationals to benefit over Angolans. But I was letting you know that would be the result of ending Angola's foreign investment policy, which is at the root of what you apparently consider a great problem.

[av2ts]

And as for Angola's terrible human development statistics, you've consistently ignored that Angola is making considerable progress on the social front. They've decreased poverty as well as anyone in Africa and have increased their social indicators at a very fast clip, since the end of the war (which is to blame for the horrible statistics). You seem to be blaming the Dos Santos Government, when they have done amazing things since the end of the war.

[Randinho]

Read my latest post. The development statistics have actually declined since the war ended.

I could care less that Angola has some small ties to Cuba.

When the country was wracked by civil war and its economy was
less than one-tenth its current size, Angola ranked 157th out of 175
countries in the United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Index
(HDI). In 2006, the country ranked 161st out of 177 countries.[3]
In 2007 and 2008, the country ranked 159th out of 179 countries.[4]
While in 2009 it improved to 143rd out of 182 countries,[5]

You call that amazing.

Now please get lost.

[Randinho]

You still ignore the fact that Angola is a country in which 8.2% of children from six months to five years suffer from acute malnutrition while 29.2 percent have chronic malnutrition caused by inadequate diet and/or infectious disease. In addition 12 million of the 19.7 million Angolans are vulnerable to food crises and 75% of them are women and children.

That's from this year. You're an apologist and a fabulist. Now get lost.

[utopiano]

for those who say we are making progress, I don't disagree, there may be economical, but let's not be fools, economic growth is not development! the economical groth must accurately support the development of the country wich would be in angola translated by a massive investment in education, healh and decent and fair employment for each angolan to be given equal chances to succeed. that's an utopy, I think, I thought after so long missplacing OIL income the gouvernment and its relatives would have mercy on the angolan people and give oportunity for each to create wealth, moreover, we are less than 35 million inhabitants..I have studied abroad, I speack a lot of languages, I work in the private sector, so meanless to say I'm not worried about me, I'm worried about the millions who after nearly 10 years of peace still cannot read, an will be slaved by capitalism in order to make a living..and sometimes I think that's their aim...peace