The verdict was pronounced by the President of Angola, João Lourenço: “I have felt a great desire on the part of the Portuguese judiciary to cooperate, information has been exchanged and aligned with Angola’s strategy in the fight against corruption and in Basically everything that has been asked Portuguese judicial authorities have found the right correspondence.” And at his side, the Portuguese Prime Minister rejoiced: “Angola’s assessment is the most relevant.”
António Costa started a two-day official visit to Angola this Monday. And the positive signal given together with Angolan President João Lourenço to judicial cooperation in the fight against corruption came yesterday at a press conference between the two in Luanda.
The Angolan legal system has several times resorted to the cooperation of the Portuguese authorities and of other countries, due to judicial processes being conducted in Angola and internationally, the most mediating of which are directed against Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the former Angolan President , Jose Eduardo dos Santos. Several of the Angolan businesswoman’s holdings and bank accounts have been frozen or seized in Angola, Portugal and other jurisdictions where she is the subject of legal proceedings. The Angolan state has already recovered $6 billion (€5.5 billion) and seized another $21 billion (€19.5 billion) as part of its asset confiscation, about half of which came from abroad.
Prior to the press conference, João Lourenço and António Costa had presided over the ceremony where 13 cooperation agreements were signed. The main agreements, on the Portuguese side, were signed respectively by the Finance Ministers, Fernando Medina, and by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho: An increase of the corporate credit line from 1.5 billion euros to 2 thousand million of euros; and the Strategic Cooperation Program (PEC) 2023/2027. The head of the Portuguese government also announced that starting next academic year, Portugal will double the number of scholarships it will award to students from Portuguese-speaking African countries, increasing the value of these scholarships by 30 percent.
On arrival in Luanda, Costa was met at the airport by the Angolan Foreign Minister, Téte António, and the Governor of the province of Luanda, Manuel Homem. Earlier he had already given an interview to Jornal de Angola where he described the relationship between the two countries as “mature and even complicit”. “It was in this common sharing of liberation from an oppressive regime that we built a very special, mature and even complicit relationship between Portugal and Angola, which continues today and which we want to preserve in the future,” he said.
50 years on April 25
During the meeting with João Lourenço, Costa gave him an official invitation: that he would come to Lisbon in 2024 for the celebration of the 50th anniversary on April 25. The head of government underlined on the one hand the “impact of the Angolan liberation war on the end of the fascist regime in Portugal” and on the other hand “the step that April 25 marked for the liberation of Angola”. .
But António Costa did more: he revealed something that Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa intends to do: “The President of the Republic will invite the heads of state of all Portuguese-speaking African countries to participate in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of 25 April. “.
Source: DN
