Corruption in Angola


Corruption in Angola refers to the pervasive and long-standing issue of corruption within the country's government and public institutions. The aftermath of the 30-year civil war and the influence of the Soviet command economy have resulted in significant institutional damage and the emergence of a centralized government with authoritarian tendencies. This has allowed the president and his associates to exert control over the nation's resources, enabling them to exploit the economy for personal gain through legal and extra-legal means.

Background

's former president, José Eduardo dos Santos, has been accused of creating one of the most corrupt countries in Africa. He had relatively weak response to the everyday needs and concerns of citizens and has instead leveraged the country's oil wealth to accumulate a massive fortune for himself and his family. The president's children, leading government officials and military officers have become incredibly wealthy, while much of the country's people live in poverty lacking access to basic services.
In Angola's early post-independence history, most of these strategies involved the oil sector or the spending revenues legally derived from the oil sector, over time corruption evolved into a variety of schemes involving companies controlled by the party elite and their patronage networks that operate in all sectors of the economy. Systemic corruption is possible on this scale because all the vital organs of the state are operated by those who prioritize their private interests within the patronage system over the responsibilities of their public position.

Corruption indices

  1. Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index gave Angola a score of 32 on a scale from 0 to 100. When ranked by score, Angola ranked 121st among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. Angola's score fell one point in 2024; this is the first drop since Angola began a steady improvement in score from its low point of 15 in 2015. For comparison with regional scores, the average score among sub-Saharan African countries was 33. The best score in sub-Saharan Africa was 72 and the worst score was 8. For comparison with worldwide scores, the average score was 43, the best score was 90, and the worst score was 8.
  2. The 2009 World Bank Worldwide Governance Index, gave Angola very low scores on the six aspects of governance assessed. Political stability improved from 19.2 in 2004 to 35.8 in 2009, but Angola scored much lower for accountability, regulatory standards, rule of law, and corruption.
  3. The 2010 Ibrahim Index, Angola ranked 43rd out of 53 sub-Saharan African countries.
  4. The 2010 ’s Transparency Index ranked Angola 47th out of 55 countries: scoring 34 out of 100.
  5. The 2010 gave Angola a score of 26 on fiscal transparency, a large improvement over its 2004 score of 3, but a far lower score than those of most of the other surveyed countries.
  6. In 2008, The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom ranked Angola 161st out of 179 countries, making Angola the seventh least free economy in sub-Saharan Africa. The freedom from corruption score was 19 of 100.
  7. Angola is listed on Global Integrity's Grand Corruption Watch List, only 15 other countries have weak enough anti-corruption safeguards to be on this list.
Ranking such as those above are based on perception surveys, their utility is generally questioned because: they measure perception, not occurrences of corruption; the survey questions imprecisely define corruption and provide little guidance about what constitutes high or low levels of corruption; people in different countries answer the previous questions in different ways, limiting the comparability across countries; and the ranking and numerical scale can make countries look further away from one another on the spectrum of corruption than they really are.

Historical overview

ended with the Angolan War of Independence against Portugal which occurred between 1970 and 1975. Independence did not produce a unified Angola, however; the country plunged into years of civil war between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola and the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. 30 years of war would produce historical legacies that combine to allow for the persistence of a highly corrupt government system.

Civil war (1975–1991)

The Angolan civil war was fought between the pro-western UNITA and the communist MPLA and had the characteristics typical of a Cold War era proxy war combined with a resource fueled struggle for control of the state apparatus between two rival strongmen. Regional countries were involved according to their Cold war alignment, the MLPA was even supported by Cuban troops. Oil production began to grow, but it was not a significant proportion of government revenue until towards the end of the period, most funding came from Soviet support.
The Soviet influence produced a highly centralized and weakly institutionalized government system controlled by a small group of people close to the president. Angola's land, resources, and infrastructure were nationalized during this time, concentrating all of the countries wealth in the state. The war precluded economic development in most of the country, only the oil sector, military, and coastal cities were funded by the state. These consequences would have an enduring effect on Angola's political economy by centralizing the economy around the president and the military and regionalizing economic development. Appropriation of state assets is rumored to have been high during this period, although the limited connection to the international economy combined with an absence of transparency limits the knowledge of details and precision of estimates.

1991–2002

Withdrawal of foreign powers at the end of the Cold War and pressure from the international community led to the 1991 Bicesse Accord: a tentative peace process between the MLPA and UNITA. As a consequence, the Angolan government was forced to begin a process of economic liberalization and transition to democracy. Elections were held in 1992, however UNITA and their leader Jonas Savimbi refused to accept defeat and civil war ensued. The civil war that leveled what was left of the countryside and killed an estimated 1000 people per day between 1992 and 2002 - interrupted somewhat by the Lusaka Peace Protocol on 20 November 1994 - until war resumed in 1998.
While the elections did not bring peace, they did provide the MLPA with international political legitimacy. The MLPA continued to be the recognized government of Angola and maintained access to oil exports and financial markets which provided them with the resources necessary to consolidate control over the new democratic institutions and the newly opened economy. Oil revenues replaced Soviet support as Angola's main source of income during this time, growing to 1 million barrels per day in 2002.
The Cold War era had aggregated control of the Angolan State in a small group; simultaneously, nationalization during that era aggregated ownership of Angola's assets in the State. Combined with the chaos of the war, the MLPA was able to avoid a robust democratization process and instead create a system where the President has a high level of discretion and a low level of accountability with regards to government spending and appointing government positions. These factors allowed for very high levels of corruption during this period of time: direct appropriation of the government budget was common: the IMF estimates that approximately 1 billion dollars per year was appropriated from the state budget during this time. The economic liberalization process was abused to sell state assets to members of the presidential patronage network for a price below market value, such transactions were often funded by loans from the Angolan state or banks.

2002–2018

Peace was achieved in 2002 with the defeat of UNITA, the Luena Memorandum was signed and elections were held in 2008, and a new constitution took effect in 2010. The constitution was drafted without public consultation and implemented without a ratification referendum. The new constitution increased the powers of the president such that there is no true division of powers and he is able to rule by presidential decree.
Angola's oil production grew from 1 million to 2 million barrels per day, while the price of oil increased from the 20-30 dollar range to over $100 per barrel. Consequently, Angola became Africa's 3rd largest economy with a GDP of $120 billion in 2013. The high price of oil had a resource curse like effect: the large profits allowed for considerable appropriation to be obscured behind visible infrastructure projects.
Although oil wealth did insulate Angola from the international leverage, they did face pressure to increase public service provision, create anti-corruption legislation, and improve transparency in the oil and financial sectors. Angola did make such improvements to remain in formal accordance with international norms and maintain access to international markets. These changes were not enforced, however; so no substantial reduction in corruption occurred - it merely took on more complicated forms when international laws necessitated.
The legacies of the previous eras produced a centralized and entrenched patronage system that included all aspects of governance and the economy that have proven to be quite resilient. There are, however, some prospects for change have occurred in recent years. The Angolan government has faced mounting fiscal pressure since the collapse of the price of oil in 2014 reduced Angola's GDP to 89 billion in 2016. The reduced revenues have made debt an issue, created a foreign exchange shortage, caused a currency devaluation and 42% inflation in 2016. The reduction in income has exposed the weakness of the country and produced a growing domestic protest movement in response to deteriorating conditions and further international pressure in response to the increased risk of insolvency in the Banks and Sonangol. Political change also offers some prospect for reform: João Lourenço was elected President in 2017. He has since removed the dos Santos family and other close associates from high level positions and pledged to improve governance and reduce corruption.