President dos Santos has faced criticism for failing to curb in corruption in Angola. The President, who has ruled for the last 33 years -- and who recently won another five year term -- has also been accused of mismanaging revenues, Reuters reported.
Despite assurances about the fund’s commitment to transparency and accountability, Angola’s track record of high-level corruption, bribery, and embezzlement by government officials is cause for concern.
A report by Corruption Watch UK and the Angolan organization Associação Mãos Livres in April 2013, uncovered widespread corruption in a 1996 sovereign debt deal between Russia and Angola. The deal enriched a number of unnecessary middlemen who walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars in exchange for redundant or fictitious services. The report claimed that President dos Santos received $36 million for his role in the charade. Angolan citizens were robbed of over $73 million in the deal.
Angola founded the fund in October to diversify the country’s energy-based economy, but the appointment of dos Santos’s son to the board of the fund drew criticism from opposition parties. The fund is meant to invest oil revenue into a broader range of industries, including the hotel industry, education, healthcare, and a variety of financial institutions.
