The Brazilian president defended, on Friday, in Luanda, that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) must transform the debt of African countries into investments in infrastructures that are still lacking in the continent.
Luíz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is making his first two-day visit to Angola, spoke at the closing of the Angola-Brazil Economic Forum, which brought together nearly five hundred participants.
The Brazilian head of state affirmed that African countries owe the IMF almost 800 billion dollars, questioning why the financial institution and the developed world “do not make an agreement and do not convert the debt of that African continent into money to invest in development instead of paying for it.”
“Doing the work that remains to be done on the African continent, especially the energy issue, this discussion is what we have to do, because if we think that everything is normal, we will not see things change,” he stressed.
The Brazilian president considered that “it is not normal” for people to be born poor and die poor, just like their descendants.
“Come and invest in Angola, which was once a usurped country and robbed of so many diamonds that this country produced. I don’t know how much these diamonds made money for Angola or made money for half a dozen smart people,” Lula said. da Silva, also citing Angola’s wealth in gold, oil, gas and agriculture.
The head of state appealed to the need for a better distribution of wealth: “As long as one eats ten times a day and the other does not eat anything, it will not work, we are creating an impoverished society.”
He told the Angolan businessmen that Brazil has returned to the African continent “for real” and added that the country wants to finance Angola again, which was a “good payer” of Brazilian investments.
“Angola has always been a country that assured us that every dollar invested here would be repaid and it did so, because this country is not the result of a ruler’s drawing, this country is the result of a very bloody struggle, not only to conquer independence, but then build the country,” said Lula da Silva.
The Brazilian president defended the repetition of this type of forum in all the African countries he visits, because politicians do not know how to discuss investments, they only know how to “open doors.”
Brazil moved away from Africa, Lula da Silva continued, “due to a lack of long-term vision or a lack of immediacy, of thinking that the investment should give a return the next day.”
Source: TSF
