“The future of our children is threatened by this budget, Angolan families will not be able to bear this budget, strikes will multiply, despair will take up residence in Angola and nobody will want to invest here,” the president of the parliamentary group of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA, the largest opposition party), Liberty Chiyaka, said today.
In his political statement, presented today at the plenary session for first reading debate of the proposed 2024 state budget bill, the politician said that next year’s budget “is dangerous”.
Because, he said, “it is not based on reality and its execution, as has been the practice, will not obey the principles of transparency, good governance and accountability, as required by article 104 of the Constitution of the Republic of Angola.”
For UNITA, the oversight of the proposed 2024 state budget bill (OGE 2024) by parliament and the Court of Auditors “will also be obstructed, because the state is captured and has a power that overrides the other powers”.
The Angolan government forecasts growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 2.8 per cent in 2024, reflecting growth in the non-oil sector of 4.6 per cent, and inflation of around 5.3 per cent in the same year.
The projections for the Angolan economy for the 2024 economic year are described in the report on the basis of the proposed state budget bill for 2024, which sets out expenditure and estimates global revenue valued at 24.7 billion kwanzas ( €27.9 billion) and emphasises that oil production, including gas production, is expected to fall by 2.6 per cent this year.
For UNITA, the oversight of the proposed 2024 state budget bill (OGE 2024) by parliament and the Court of Auditors “will also be obstructed, because the state is captured and has a power that overrides the other powers”.
“With this budget, in 2024 the lives of families will get worse, unemployment will rise, the price of petrol could go up again, the kwanza will devalue even more, the price of food will continue to rise and those who embezzle the people’s money for their own benefit will continue to steal,” Chiyaka pointed out.
According to UNITA’s parliamentary leader, the Angolan government’s three priorities listed in the 2024 state budget proposal, namely “strengthening family income, investing more in companies and the economy and making the state budget more sustainable”, will not be achieved “because the assumptions are not realistic”.
“The country is bankrupt and the government is not complying with the law,” he said. The Angolan authorities are proposing in the draft budget bill a 5 per cent increase in civil service salaries, which UNITA believes will not be feasible “because prices are expected to rise by 15 per cent in 2024”.
The Angolan government forecasts growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 2.8 per cent in 2024, reflecting growth in the non-oil sector of 4.6 per cent, and inflation of around 5.3 per cent in the same year.
UNITA also criticised the country’s current public debt, considering that paying off late debts to companies, “hidden debts, false debts and uncertified debts is not an investment”.
“Capitalising bankrupt banks in order to channel public state funds into the private projects of government officials is certainly not a fair and legitimate investment in the economy,” he stressed.
The leader also pointed out that almost 60 per cent of the proposed 2024 state budget is for debt servicing, but, he noted, the government “does not present the medium-term debt strategy to parliament and does not accept an audit of the public debt”.
The politician also said that the budget being discussed in parliament “does not belong to Angolans, but to the regime’s debt”. “This is the budget that allows for more embezzlement, more corruption and less accountability. This budget promotes regional inequalities and asymmetries,” he said.
He even considered that the 2024 state budget bill contemplates the “distribution of everyone’s resources among a few, among party-state cronies, friends, collaborators, commentators and sycophants of the regime” and the majority, namely school meals, agriculture, health, scientific research and innovation, receive “crumbs”.
He also argued that the budget should be at the service of prosperity, happiness and people’s dignity, at the service of democracy, freedom and reconciliation “and not at the service of repression, fear, the coercion of freedoms, the imprisonment of young people who dream of living in freedom”.
The proposed state budget “must no longer be at the service of the autocratic state, of the persecution of political opponents, activists, journalists and decent citizens. The budget must not be at the service of promoting hatred, exclusion, inequality and injustice,” said Liberty Chiyaka.
Plataforma with Lusa
