Angola

Angola's state-controlled oil company Sonangol - the largest single shareholder in Portugal's Millennium bcp - wants the bank to gain global scale in a restructuring that involves a management shakeup, Expresso weekly said. The lender - Portugal's largest by assets - is hampered at home by the country's debt crisis and deep austerity imposed by a 78-billion-euro bailout. It needs to find fresh capital in the next few months to comply with new European rules, with cash from rapidly-growing Ang...read more

The IMF said on Tuesday a $32 billion accounting discrepancy in Angola's state funds was linked to 'quasi-fiscal operations' by state oil firm Sonangol done on the government's behalf, but not recorded in official budget accounts. 'Preliminary data indicate that quasi-fiscal operations undertaken by the state oil company on behalf of the government, financed out of oil revenues but not recorded in the budgetary accounts, can explain a large part of the discrepancy,' the IMF said in a statement.

Angola's state-owned oil company Sonangol EP and some of the African country's banks are interested in stakes in Portuguese companies, Angolan Economy Minister Abraao Gourgel said. Angolan companies and investors have been increasing their stakes in companies in Portugal, which last year became the third euro-region country to request a bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Sonangol owned 11.6 per cent of Banco Comercial Portugues, Portugal's second-biggest publ...read more

Long-serving Angolan President Jose Eduardo dos Santos is keeping his country and the world guessing about whether he will bid for re-election in 2012 in Africa's No. 2 oil producer. Speculation over Dos Santos' intentions - under the country's new 2010 constitution he could remain in power until 2022 - has reached fever pitch among analysts, investors and oil companies watching one of Africa's fastest-growing economies.

Masses of Angolan nationals that daily trek to Namibia for health and education services want their government to construct hospitals and schools in Angola to reduce their reliance on Namibian schools and hospitals. During a meeting recently by two Angolan governors, Eusebio de Brito Teixera, of Kuando Kubango and Antonio Didalelwa of Cunene Pro­vince and Ohangwena Governor Usko Nghaamwa at Olupale village of Kuando Kubango Province in Angola, Angolan citizens said it was time that their gove...read more

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