By Ed Stoddard
JOHANNESBURG, March 30 (Reuters) – The International
Monetary Fund had bad timing this week in approving the latest
tranche of a loan to oil-rich Angola, coinciding as it did with
the issuance of a French arrest warrant for the son of
Equatorial Guinea’s President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
Both events highlight the murky world of African oil, one
long linked to rampant graft, glaring income disparities and
political longevity: Africa’s longest-serving presidents run the
shows in Equatorial Guinea and Angola.
Let’s start with the IMF loan, which was approved on
Wednesday, the final $132.9 million disbursement to Angola under
the country’s $1.4 billion loan agreement made in 2009.
Earlier, rights groups wrote to IMF Managing Director
Christine Lagarde urging the IMF’s executive board to withhold
the final tranche until the Angolan government improved
transparency on how it uses public funds.
They also urged the government to explain a $32 billion
discrepancy in public funds thought to be linked to the state
oil company, Sonangol.
The IMF said Angola, Africa’s second-largest oil producer
after Nigeria, had taken measures to improve its accountability
in public spending and oil profit transfers.
Perhaps, but a lot remains to be explained.
As Human Rights Watch has noted, the Angolan government has
not yet explained a discrepancy of $32 billion in state funds
thought to be linked to Sonangol and spent or transferred from
2007-10 – a discrepancy flagged by the fund in October.
Continued…
