Angolans 'yet to reap benefits'
2008-01-12 19:41
Luanda - The people of Angola have yet to reap any benefit from China's growing presence in the oil-rich country, the leader of the main opposition Unita party said in an interview published on Saturday.
"What we have seen is that Angolans have not benefited from the accords with China. These are aspects that need to be looked at carefully and see how they can be bettered," Isaias Samakuva told the weekly Cruzeiro do Sul newspaper.
The southwestern African nation is currently the fastest-growing economy in the continent, mainly off the back of oil exports to China, but some two-thirds of the population are estimated to earn less than a dollar a day.
Angola supplies China with around two million tons of crude oil each month and has in return been the recipient of soft loans which have helped fund the reconstruction of a country which emerged from a 27-year civil war in 2002.
Samakuva said it made sense for the government to do business with Beijing but the benefits must be more widely felt.
"We agree that the Angolan government has made a good strategic option. China is a giant country that soon will take on leadership in some important fields of economy, trade and military the world over. A relationship with such a country is of interest. But the accords have to benefit Angolans," he said.
Asked how he would deal with China were his party to win legislative elections scheduled for September of this year, Samakuva said his party would honour any agreements although they would seek "corrections".
"We don't know much about them because those accords were not sanctioned by the parliament as it should be. We will have to review and correct what needs to be correct, but in principle we will honour them," he said.
September's elections will be the first since the end of the civil war in which some 500 000 people were killed.