The daughter of the Angolan head of state, Cristina Lourenço, was appointed last Thursday, 7 February, as president of the executive committee of the Angolan Debt and Securities Exchange (Bodiva), of which she was a director. The issue is sparking criticism and comparisons with the country’s former president, Radio France International ( RFI)reported.
According to RFI, the decision followed the departure of the previous chairman of Bodiva’s executive committee, Walter Pacheco, and the executive director, Odair da Costa, who resigned last week.
Cristina Lourenço was a director and now takes on the role of chairman of the executive committee on an interim basis, as she is the longest-serving member of the body, to which she was appointed in 2020.
Cleiton Pereira de Barros and Natália Carvalho de Jesus, who were directors until now, will serve as executive directors on an interim basis.
The composition of Bodiva’s new board of directors will be ratified or elected at the general shareholders’ meeting scheduled for 21 March.
The news of the post for the daughter of Angolan President João Lourenço sparked criticism and was compared to José Eduardo dos Santos’ initiative in appointing his daughter, Isabel dos Santos, to Sonangol in 2016. The fight against nepotism was one of the flagships of João Lourenço’s government, which promised to put an end to the practice in public institutions.
For lawyer and professor Agostinho Canando, although the criteria of legality and merit were used to appoint Cristina Lourenço, the fact remains that the appointment politically tarnishes the image of her father, who promised to combat cronyism, favouritism and influence peddling.
‘In terms of administrative law, this type of appointment can follow two criteria: the criterion of legality or the criterion of merit. Since, in political terms, João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço promised to make the fight against nepotism one of the flagships of his government, he shot himself in the foot by appointing his daughter, albeit on an interim basis, to the position of chairman of Bodiva’s Board of Directors,’ he said.
For his part, civic activist João Manvidele, director of Omunga, believes that the appointment of Cristina Lourenço shows that João Lourenço has inherited the vices of his predecessor’s past.
‘The current president is following the same mistakes that President José Eduardo dos Santos made. João Lourenço should be the first person to give positive signals, without reminding us of everything we’ve already seen with the appointment of Isabel dos Santos as Sonangol’s CEO. Regardless of her skills, her qualities and the fact that she is a long-standing member of the institution, I think the appointment goes against the grain if we look at what the current President’s governance strategy is,’ he argued.
Before arriving at Bodiva, Cristina Lourenço was deputy director-general of the Ministry of Finance’s Technical Unit for Monitoring External Financing Projects. She had already been at Bodiva in 2014, when she was a market analyst. João Lourenço’s daughter has a degree in Management from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, in England, in 2012, and a Master’s degree in Investment Management from Pace University, Lubin School of Business in New York, USA.
