Citizen involvement through non-governmental and community-based organizations is a key feature in the recovery and reuse of recovered assets. The non-governmental organizations Associação Mãos Livres, Associação OMUNGA, Associação Pro Bono Angola and UYELE-Associação Cívica, dedicated to the defense of human rights and the exercise of citizenship, established the Working Group for Transparency and Truth in the Recovery and Reuse of Recovered Assets with the aim of supporting authorities in managing and ensuring the social reuse of returned assets. As established in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), States Parties must promote the active participation of civil society, both in preventing and combating corruption and in the various stages of asset recovery, as only in this way can trust be created, public support secured, and the fight against corruption strengthened. In Angola, not only is the reduction of civic space a real threat, but asset recovery appears to be an especially complex and time-consuming process, both in terms of investigating stolen assets and managing returned assets.
There is also a general lack of transparency in investigations and in the management of recovered assets. With the publication of this first report, the Working Group for Transparency and Truth in the Recovery and Reuse of Recovered Assets hopes to:
- Promote greater transparency and government accountability with regard to the recovery and social reuse of stolen assets;
- encourage the implementation of corrective actions and compensation for damages; and
- reinforce Angola’s commitment to combating corruption.
This report investigates what happened to parts of the two billion dollars which were invested in the Integrated Municipal Investment Plan (PIIM) from the asset recovery process associated with funds related to the Angolan Sovereign Fund, returned from the UK.
Although focusing exclusively on case studies tracing the returned assets, the monitoring action carried out by the four civil society organisations that make up the Working Group for Transparency and Truth in the Recovery and Reuse of Recovered Assets allowed some conclusions to be drawn about the challenges facing the implementation of the PIIM, both from the point of view of transparency and accountability, and in the context of the social reuse of assets recovered by the State. Thus, specifically regarding the implementation of the PIIM, the Working Group recommends that the government and the responsible authorities:
- Include the active participation of the beneficiary communities and civil society in the processes of consultation, preparation, approval and monitoring of the implementation of the projects, so that they can monitor their implementation and measure their impact within the affected communities;
- Grant access to data and information related to the PIIM and facilitate consultation, requiring Provincial Governments and their respective municipal administrations to place, on their portals or websites, all information related to the implementation of their local investments;
- Pay attention to the budgets that are repeated annually, i.e. it is not possible for the same project to receive OGE funds every year, when it should start and end;
- That the processes for forming and executing contracts signed under the PIIM be made public, for the sake of transparency and to allow for better civic monitoring and oversight of these projects;
- That the committees or working groups created to monitor the PIIM be restructured, in order to allow greater involvement of society in the process of monitoring and supervising the projects registered in the programme.
With regard to asset recovery and management processes, they recommend that:
- SENRA publish comprehensive updated information on the freezing, seizure and confiscation of assets, as well as ongoing processes and the quantity of assets involved, broken down by country of origin;
- All stakeholders, including civil society organisations, should participate in decision-making processes regarding the return and reuse of recovered assets, so that the real victims of corruption and embezzlement – the Angolan people – are effectively compensated;
- Assets recovered and reinvested in social projects, such as the PIIM, are not lost again to corruption and embezzlement;
- International best practices should be incorporated into the national asset recovery and management system, such as the African Union recommendations.
We believe that by implementing these recommendations, the Government will achieve better results in its overall action to combat corruption, while at the same time providing Angolan communities in their respective municipalities with greater opportunities for social and economic growth. Only in this way will it be possible to meet the targets set out in the National Development Plan and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Read the full report here (in Portuguese)