Angola’s Justice Minister Francisco Queiroz on Monday said the government has so far recovered more than $5 billion stolen from state coffers, both at home and from abroad, as a result of actions against corruption-related crimes, reported Reuters.
During an international conference in Abu Dhabi, Queiroz said the money, including $3 billion stolen from the sovereign wealth fund, had been siphoned off by corruption and money-laundering.
He explained that the government of Angola has benefited from the support of international partners. He said that the cooperation is related to the repatriation of funds illegally transferred abroad, as well as the transfer to the Angolan state of the ownership of assets that result from money laundering activities.
Queiroz added that some countries were obstructing Angola’s efforts to track down the looted funds. The minister, however, did not give specific details about how the money was stolen.
“We have argued insistently that these important resources should be returned unconditionally to the countries from which they were illegally withdrawn in order to be used to improve the quality of life of our populations,” Queiroz said during the 8th Conference of States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (COSP).
After becoming the president in 2017, Joao Lourenco accelerated an anti-corruption drive in Africa’s second-biggest oil-exporting country, ending the nearly 40-year grip on power by Jose Eduardo dos Santos.
After taking over, Lourenco fired Dos Santos’s son as head of the sovereign wealth fund and his daughter, Isabel, Africa’s richest woman, as chair of state oil company Sonangol.
The former President’s son Jose Filomeno went on trial last week along with the head of the central bank accused of transferring $500m in state funds to a London account.
The government said a business partner had returned over three billion dollars allegedly stolen from the sovereign wealth fund.
