Costa Silva spoke to Lusa today in Luanda on the sidelines of the presentation of Deloitte’s “Banking Analysis” study, underlining that although oil “is not to blame for what happens” in Angola, the sector creates “rentier economies” that need to be overcome.
The academic praised the investments made in the electricity sector, recalling that the capacity of the Angolan power grid tripled between 2015 and 2022, growing from 2.3 to 6.2 gigawatts, driven by large dams, and that the goal is to reach 8 gigawatts by 2027.
The major structural project in this journey is the Caculo Cabaça dam, with 2,060 megawatts, which will become the country’s largest hydroelectric facility upon its completion.
The engineer and manager highlighted the export potential of this installed capacity, given the structural deficit across the African region.
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“Angola can export part of this electricity to Southern Africa, where there is a deficit of six gigawatts,” he said, arguing that if the country uses between three or four gigawatts for domestic consumption, the surplus can become “a new source of foreign exchange” and help reduce dependence on oil.
The energy specialist warned, however, of the urgency of diversification, noting that in 2025, oil production fell 8% due to “aging fields” that experience greater difficulty in producing.
“Angola could face a serious problem in the future if it only relies on oil, and it must think about the post-oil era,” the academic stressed.
Costa Silva highlighted that electricity is one of the great levers of development, provided it is combined with the modernization of agriculture and industrial transformation.
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“Electricity allows for the electrification of the entire country, including rural electrification,” he told Lusa, defending that this connection to agricultural and industrial change can open new fronts of development.
Costa Silva also called for a broad diversification of the Angolan economy, rejecting the simple substitution of one dependency for another.
“It would be tragic to replace dependency on oil with dependency on diamonds,” he stated, warning of the risks associated with the sector, including the rising production of lab-grown diamonds.
“What Angola needs is not to depend on this or that sector, but on the combination of all of them as a whole,” he concluded.
