The Angolan parliament on Thursday approved the draft state budget (OGE) 2025 at the final reading debate and vote with favourable votes from the MPLA and PHA, with UNITA (opposition) justifying its vote against with the government’s “unacceptable spending”.
The OGE draft bill was definitively approved today in parliament with 119 votes in favour from the ruling Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) and the opposition Humanist Party of Angola (PHA), 78 votes against from the National Union for the Independence of Angola (UNITA, the largest opposition party) and four abstentions.
The Social Renewal Party (PRS) and the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA), both in opposition, abstained from voting on the budget, which estimates income and sets expenditure at the same figure of 34.63 trillion kwanzas (around €35 billion).
For the MPLA, the OGE 2025 is an “essential instrument for promoting macroeconomic stability, fostering sustainable development and meeting the most urgent needs of the public”.
“We voted in favour because we believe that the significant increase in funding for education and health will be crucial to guaranteeing an improvement in the quality of primary education and primary health care, which are fundamental areas for human development,” said MP Idalina Valente in her party’s explanation of vote.
In justifying its vote against the 2025 state budget, UNITA considered it “unacceptable” for the government to undertake and disseminate a programme that indicates a high financial and economic cost for the country.
According to MP Faustino Mumbika, the authorities are preparing the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of independence, which will take place on 11 November 2025, “more to please foreign guests”, in which “hundreds of millions of dollars are to be spent without being made clear in the budget, in a context in which the majority go hungry and many eat from the rubbish dump”.
For his part, PHA MP Fernando Dinis said that his party voted in favour because the state budget is an essential instrument for the management of public resources and for national development. However, he expressed concern about the “disproportionate allocation” of resources in central state bodies in Luanda.
Nimi-a-Simbi, an FNLA MP, signalled that his party was abstaining because next year’s state budget “will not resolve the major social difficulties facing Angolans”.
Speaking for the PRS was MP Benedito Daniel, who said that the country was facing worsening economic conditions and an increased risk of poverty, noting that by 2025 the country would have around 17 million Angolans on the poverty line.
“The state budget does not foresee how it will deal with this increase (in poverty), whether it will solve it or reduce it,” justifying the abstention.
The 2025 state budget, which estimates revenue and sets expenditure at the same figure of 34.63 trillion kwanzas (around €35 billion), foresees a high debt service that will absorb almost 50% of budget expenditure, totalling 16.5 trillion kwanzas (around €17 billion), of which 12.45 trillion kwanzas (€12.85 billion) will be used to repay the debt.
Angola’s Minister of State for Economic Coordination, José de Lima Massano, previously pointed out that this budget includes concrete actions to protect families, incomes and promote economic growth, noting that the government will strengthen the School Meals Programme by adopting a National School Feeding Plan, which will have a budget allocation of 450 billion kwanzas ( €463 million).
Lusa
