As Angola Rebuilds, Most Find Their Poverty Persists
SHARON LaFRANIERE
NYT, October 14
LUANDA, Angola — Two years ago, only the brave or desperate would attempt the 186-mile drive from this garbage-strewn capital to the northern provincial capital, Uige. It was a 12-hour, teeth-clenching, hair-raising ordeal of dodging tire-blowing potholes and edges of roadway that crumbled into precipices.
Now, thanks to Angola’s surging oil production, the journey takes half the time. And that is not all that is being transformed: All over Angola, hundreds of workers are rebuilding roads, airports, bridges and railways that were shattered during nearly three decades of civil war.
For most Angolans, the drone of road graders and steam shovels is the first tangible evidence of a dividend from their country’s oil and diamond wealth, mined in earnest now after five years of peace. Many call it long past due.
Angola is gushing oil, pumping about 2 million barrels a day, more than any other African country except Nigeria. The International Monetary Fund projects a 24 percent economic growth this year — one of the fastest rates in the world. The government is taking in two and a half times as much money as it did three years ago.
But Angolans, by many indications, remain as poor as ever. The poverty rate is a matter of debate: the government claims a 12 percent drop in the past five years; analysts for the Catholic University of Angola’s research center say two in three Angolans still live on $2 or less a day, the same percentage as in 2002. Still, no one disputes that most Angolans face appalling living conditions, sky-high infant mortality rates, dirty water, illiteracy and a host of other ills.
The United Nations ranked Angola last year as the world’s 17th least developed country. In a December poll by a pro-democracy group and the United States Agency for International Development, 6 in 10 Angolans said their economic situation was no better now than five years ago.
With elections approaching, the government’s huge effort to rebuild the county’s infrastructure is intended to help change that. Aguinaldo Jaime, the nation’s deputy prime minister, said Angola had taken out between $8 billion and $9 billion in loans from China since 2004, exchanging guarantees of oil supply for reconstruction work. Others, like the World Bank, estimate the Chinese loans at $12 billion.
Reconnecting roads and railways, Mr. Jaime said, will help jump-start agriculture and commercial sectors and spread the wealth beyond a small elite.
“The question many people have is that if the economy is growing so fast, when will the population start feeling the benefits?” he said at a recent lecture here. He answered his own question: “I have to say it takes time.”
The government’s critics argue that progress would be quicker if public officials were not so busy enriching themselves. In 2003, the weekly newspaper Angolese Samanario published a list of the wealthiest people in Angola. Twelve of the top 20 were government officials; five were former government officials.
Since then, the government has opened some of its financial records. Mr. Jaime said in an interview that some officials had prospered not by stealing public funds, but by exploiting business prospects and Angola’s antiquated conflict of interest law.
Still, Transparency International, the anticorruption organization, continues to rank Angola as the world’s 10th most corrupt nation. Many Angolans take it as a given that those who shop at Luanda’s new upscale mall or tool about in Land Cruisers are state officials or their friends. One car dealership manager, who caters to government officials, said he ordered only the costliest luxury cars. “They want to be first with the latest model,” he said, speaking anonymously so as not to lose customers.
“Everyone around the president has big business here and abroad,” said Landu Kama, coordinator of the Coalition for Reconciliation, Transparency and Citizenship, a pro-democracy group. “These are special Angolans. The rest of Angolans are just part of the landscape.”
But even critics like Mr. Kama acknowledge that the scenery is changing. Since 2002, the government says, it has rebuilt 2,400 miles of crumbled roads — more than half of the nation’s system — and renovated airports in Luanda and three other cities. More than 430 miles of new rail track have been laid, officials said.
Even once forgotten provincial capitals like Uige are bustling with work crews in royal blue work outfits. One Chinese engineer who identified himself as Tom said his Beijing-based company had sent 100 workers to live in a compound surrounded by half-ruined buildings pockmarked with bullet holes.
“These roads here are terrible, very bad,” he said as he supervised the widening of a red-dirt road. He said his crew worked 15 hours a day, seven days a week, with only five days off a year. “There is no rest,” he said.
The pace of the work has picked up as elections have drawn nearer. Angola last held multiparty elections in 1992, after nearly two decades of civil war that followed independence from Portugal. The rebel Union for the Total Independence of Angola accused the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, of rigging the vote, and war broke out again in 1998 and lasted six more years. Since then, the MPLA-led government has repeatedly promised and put off a new election.
Angolans patiently tolerate the delays, analysts say, because their memories of bloodshed are fresh. “People fear we will have another fight, so we have to keep all these things in low tension,” said Manuel Alves da Rocha, academic director of Catholic University’s research center here.
Increasingly, parliamentary elections look likely, with presidential elections tentatively scheduled for 2008. About 7.5 million voters have been registered in the past year, of a total population of 16 million. President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 28 years, is expected to run, even though he said in 2001 that he would not.
That his party would win seems a given. The opposition is weak and co-opted. Nine in 10 Angolans polled in the December survey said the government was doing a good job. But after decades of conflict, self-censorship is a rule of thumb, and true gauges of public sentiment are rare. Analysts predict Angolans who do not like the governing party will stay home rather than vote.
Even executives of American oil companies here keep far out of the public eye, saying they do not want to risk offending the government by commenting to the news media.
Western diplomats and representatives of financial institutions like the World Bank try to keep up the pressure for elections and good governance measures. But as oil revenues have ballooned, their influence has diminished. This year, Angola joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but limited its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund.
Todd Moss, the American deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said, “Angola has traditionally been very, very closed” and “has not made as much progress as we would like.” Still, he said, “We don’t want to back them into a corner where they think their only option is to withdraw further.”
Some Western diplomats say the West missed a major chance to help shape Angola when the United States and other nations turned down the government’s request in 2002 to hold a donor conference. Mr. Jaime said that rejection was a major reason that Angola turned to China to finance its reconstruction.
“We are following our own model,” Mr. Jaime said. “It is probably not orthodox. But when you have all the basic infrastructure destroyed, there is no other way.”
NYT, October 14
LUANDA, Angola — Two years ago, only the brave or desperate would attempt the 186-mile drive from this garbage-strewn capital to the northern provincial capital, Uige. It was a 12-hour, teeth-clenching, hair-raising ordeal of dodging tire-blowing potholes and edges of roadway that crumbled into precipices.
Now, thanks to Angola’s surging oil production, the journey takes half the time. And that is not all that is being transformed: All over Angola, hundreds of workers are rebuilding roads, airports, bridges and railways that were shattered during nearly three decades of civil war.
For most Angolans, the drone of road graders and steam shovels is the first tangible evidence of a dividend from their country’s oil and diamond wealth, mined in earnest now after five years of peace. Many call it long past due.
Angola is gushing oil, pumping about 2 million barrels a day, more than any other African country except Nigeria. The International Monetary Fund projects a 24 percent economic growth this year — one of the fastest rates in the world. The government is taking in two and a half times as much money as it did three years ago.
But Angolans, by many indications, remain as poor as ever. The poverty rate is a matter of debate: the government claims a 12 percent drop in the past five years; analysts for the Catholic University of Angola’s research center say two in three Angolans still live on $2 or less a day, the same percentage as in 2002. Still, no one disputes that most Angolans face appalling living conditions, sky-high infant mortality rates, dirty water, illiteracy and a host of other ills.
The United Nations ranked Angola last year as the world’s 17th least developed country. In a December poll by a pro-democracy group and the United States Agency for International Development, 6 in 10 Angolans said their economic situation was no better now than five years ago.
With elections approaching, the government’s huge effort to rebuild the county’s infrastructure is intended to help change that. Aguinaldo Jaime, the nation’s deputy prime minister, said Angola had taken out between $8 billion and $9 billion in loans from China since 2004, exchanging guarantees of oil supply for reconstruction work. Others, like the World Bank, estimate the Chinese loans at $12 billion.
Reconnecting roads and railways, Mr. Jaime said, will help jump-start agriculture and commercial sectors and spread the wealth beyond a small elite.
“The question many people have is that if the economy is growing so fast, when will the population start feeling the benefits?” he said at a recent lecture here. He answered his own question: “I have to say it takes time.”
The government’s critics argue that progress would be quicker if public officials were not so busy enriching themselves. In 2003, the weekly newspaper Angolese Samanario published a list of the wealthiest people in Angola. Twelve of the top 20 were government officials; five were former government officials.
Since then, the government has opened some of its financial records. Mr. Jaime said in an interview that some officials had prospered not by stealing public funds, but by exploiting business prospects and Angola’s antiquated conflict of interest law.
Still, Transparency International, the anticorruption organization, continues to rank Angola as the world’s 10th most corrupt nation. Many Angolans take it as a given that those who shop at Luanda’s new upscale mall or tool about in Land Cruisers are state officials or their friends. One car dealership manager, who caters to government officials, said he ordered only the costliest luxury cars. “They want to be first with the latest model,” he said, speaking anonymously so as not to lose customers.
“Everyone around the president has big business here and abroad,” said Landu Kama, coordinator of the Coalition for Reconciliation, Transparency and Citizenship, a pro-democracy group. “These are special Angolans. The rest of Angolans are just part of the landscape.”
But even critics like Mr. Kama acknowledge that the scenery is changing. Since 2002, the government says, it has rebuilt 2,400 miles of crumbled roads — more than half of the nation’s system — and renovated airports in Luanda and three other cities. More than 430 miles of new rail track have been laid, officials said.
Even once forgotten provincial capitals like Uige are bustling with work crews in royal blue work outfits. One Chinese engineer who identified himself as Tom said his Beijing-based company had sent 100 workers to live in a compound surrounded by half-ruined buildings pockmarked with bullet holes.
“These roads here are terrible, very bad,” he said as he supervised the widening of a red-dirt road. He said his crew worked 15 hours a day, seven days a week, with only five days off a year. “There is no rest,” he said.
The pace of the work has picked up as elections have drawn nearer. Angola last held multiparty elections in 1992, after nearly two decades of civil war that followed independence from Portugal. The rebel Union for the Total Independence of Angola accused the governing Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, of rigging the vote, and war broke out again in 1998 and lasted six more years. Since then, the MPLA-led government has repeatedly promised and put off a new election.
Angolans patiently tolerate the delays, analysts say, because their memories of bloodshed are fresh. “People fear we will have another fight, so we have to keep all these things in low tension,” said Manuel Alves da Rocha, academic director of Catholic University’s research center here.
Increasingly, parliamentary elections look likely, with presidential elections tentatively scheduled for 2008. About 7.5 million voters have been registered in the past year, of a total population of 16 million. President José Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for 28 years, is expected to run, even though he said in 2001 that he would not.
That his party would win seems a given. The opposition is weak and co-opted. Nine in 10 Angolans polled in the December survey said the government was doing a good job. But after decades of conflict, self-censorship is a rule of thumb, and true gauges of public sentiment are rare. Analysts predict Angolans who do not like the governing party will stay home rather than vote.
Even executives of American oil companies here keep far out of the public eye, saying they do not want to risk offending the government by commenting to the news media.
Western diplomats and representatives of financial institutions like the World Bank try to keep up the pressure for elections and good governance measures. But as oil revenues have ballooned, their influence has diminished. This year, Angola joined the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, but limited its cooperation with the International Monetary Fund.
Todd Moss, the American deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said, “Angola has traditionally been very, very closed” and “has not made as much progress as we would like.” Still, he said, “We don’t want to back them into a corner where they think their only option is to withdraw further.”
Some Western diplomats say the West missed a major chance to help shape Angola when the United States and other nations turned down the government’s request in 2002 to hold a donor conference. Mr. Jaime said that rejection was a major reason that Angola turned to China to finance its reconstruction.
“We are following our own model,” Mr. Jaime said. “It is probably not orthodox. But when you have all the basic infrastructure destroyed, there is no other way.”
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